Split Across the Continents
by OfficiallyDone
Summary: AU where Ziva came back from Israel to work for NCIS. Casefic that goes into a lot more. TIVA.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS. Never have done and never will.

Part 1 Washington DC

Lieutenant Marcus King had a hangover. It wasn't just any hangover but the kind of hangover that would have put his training academy 200lb heavy set drill instructor to shame. He checked his phone, cursed loudly at the time, and started trying to locate his clothes from the night before casually strewn across the floor. The bleached blond girl from the bed moaned as he started to pull on his jeans.

"Can't you stay a little longer? We can pick up right where you left off." Her voice was husky and sent tingles down Marcus's spine but the thought of his commander's reaction when he arrived late was more sobering than a cold shower.

"Would love to but my boss isn't too happy about being tardy." Marcus replied kissing her ear and leaving the room.

The seedy hotel that he had spent the last few hours was quiet at this hour, well almost quiet, the loud couple down the hall were clearly nowhere near rest and Marcus inwardly smirked as he heard the unmistakable voice of his fellow marine getting some action. He quickly exited the hotel and started towards a 24 hour convenience store which he hoped would sell something breakfasty at this hour. The one guy on shift was peering over his phone checking Facebook as Marcus began examining the selection of poor quality donuts and muffins. He was half asleep, so he didn't hear someone approaching him. He didn't hear the bullet either.

Navy Yard DC.

"So you see Ziva, Sean Connery was so much better at being James Bond than Daniel Craig." Tony finished what had been an almost twenty minute monologue to a rather bored Ziva as they left the elevator and headed towards their desks. Despite Ziva's complete lack of interest in James Bond, Tony had seen fit to educate her on what he felt she was definitely missing out on.

"Daniel Craig is rather good looking don't you think? I mean that scene in Casino Royale…" She teased Tony as she watched his face turn to a scowl.

"He's not that good looking." Tony muttered as he emptied his gun, wallet, keys, and badge into his top desk drawer. Ziva laughed at the remark as she sat down at her desk and just enjoyed the view of her partner for eleven years on and off sink down into his desk. Sure he wasn't as young as she had been when she had first met him but then neither was she.

She nodded a quick good morning to McGee who appeared to be rather engrossed in looking at a webpage. She nodded across at Tony as she crept across to see what he was doing.

"Engagement rings, McGoo?" Tony called him out as they leant over his shoulder. McGee sighed and continued to scroll through the webpage.

"I'm going to propose to Delilah but I need help choosing the ring." McGee explained as he accidentally clicked on a ring that was almost as tacky as it was tasteless.

"Not that one. It looks awful." Ziva cringed as McGee exited the screen and went back to the main page.

"You can trust me on this McGagementring." Tony nodded as he commandeered the mouse and started to scroll through.

"Since when do you have experience picking out engagement rings?" McGee snorted as he tried to grab his mouse again.

"Still sore McGee. Still sore." Tony said, grabbing the mouse back.

"It's been fifteen years Tony." Ziva said exasperatedly. "Don't you think you have moved on?" Tony rolled his eyes.

"No time for rings now, dead marine stuffed into a convenience store display. Grab your gear." Gibbs hollered as he thundered through the bullpen wearing his classic sports coat and holding his trademark coffee. Tony and Ziva left McGee's side faster than bullets as the followed their boss towards the elevator.

"Yeah I have moved on." Tony muttered into Ziva's ear as they headed into the elevator.

After what felt like the scariest twenty minutes in McGee's life, the NCIS truck screeched to halt outside a run down convenience store with a neon sign above it detailed six packs for five bucks. The marine inside was splayed in a grotesque fashion inside a display with three bullet holes in his abdomen and one in his head.

"Morning all." Came the cheerful voice of Ducky accompanied by Palmer.

"Cause of death, Duck?" Gibbs didn't bother with the pleasantries.

"I have only just arrived but I can probably estimate the gunshot wounds although which one remains to be seen." Ducky mumbled as he handed the liver probe over to Jimmy.

"Time of death was 5:30 this morning, Doctor." Jimmy added as Tony and Ziva walked back into the store.

"Found another body boss. Appears to be the store clerk. Gunshot wound to the head. Had a phone on him." Tony added keeping it brief.

"No witnesses either." Ziva added.

"Boss, this is Lieutenant Marcus King stationed at the Pentagon. Wife is Maria King and they have a ten year old daughter April." McGee added as he checked their portable AFIS machine. Ziva felt her breath catch in her throat. Ten year old daughter… She banished the thought. She couldn't think about /her/ now. She quickly focused on collecting evidence so to avoid catching her boss's eye. As she focused on looking for shell casings she felt Tony come up behind her.

"You okay?" His voice was low and she knew the implied tone behind it. He knew why she was almost going to pieces of the mention of a ten year old.

"I will be." Ziva answered as she put a 9mm shell casing into an evidence bag.

"Ziva…" His voice trailed over laced with concern which simultaneously made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. She grabbed the rest of her kit and headed towards the van. She couldn't cry now, not where she was working. She threw her gear into the back and turned to go towards the cab when she was faced with Tony, the same look of concern on his face. He pulled her into a hug and she felt herself relax into it. It was just Tony after all.

"I'm sorry." He whispered into her ear.

A/N: This is my first fan fiction. I hope you enjoy it!


	2. Chapter 2

Washington DC

The rest of the team's day had been made up of going through bank statements, credit cards, and trying to get into contact with the Pentagon about King's assignment. So far the pentagon had been worse than useless leaving Tony exhausted and Gibb's irritable. Then at around four in the afternoon they had managed to get in touch with Maria King who had been out of town on a business trip. That had then led to and hour of trying to console Maria about the death of her husband. All in all, Tony was tired. He continued to ponder Ziva's reaction to hearing about a ten year old daughter. It wasn't often that she broke down but then it had been a surprise that neither of them had been expecting.

As the clock ticked past seven in the evening and the team were still working, Gibbs stormed through and ordered them all to have an early night and they would pick up tomorrow. Tony watched as McGee grabbed his coat and sprinted out of the building but he waited. Ziva stayed at her desk appearing to not have heard Gibbs.

"Ziva, early night?" Tony prompted her, as he held her coat.

"Yes, I know." She accepted the coat as she stared off into the distance.

"I'm coming over tonight." Tony informed her as he waited for her to pull her coat on.

"I know." Ziva added grabbing her bag. "You wouldn't be you if you didn't." She added giving him a small smile to indicate that he was still welcome.

"Just give me about an hour to change and grab some stuff." Tony added as they got in the elevator. Ziva nodded not really listening. The rode the rest of the way in silence but stayed together until they got to their cars. Tony gave Ziva a quick kiss on the forehead and started to head towards his apartment.

Less than an hour later he was knocking on the door to her apartment clutching a DVD and a bottle of wine.

"You have a key you know." Ziva chastised him as she let him. She wore what he knew to be her comfortable clothes and her hair was wet from the shower.

"Hello to you too." Tony nodded as he shuffled off his shoes and accepted the glass of wine that she offered him. "What happened today, Ziva? We deal with kids all the time but you seemed really out of it today." Tony asked starting up their conversation from earlier.

"It's just that today was the anniversary that I lost her and it just hit me harder than normal." Ziva explained quietly her voice wobbling dangerously.

"Im sorry for forgetting. Seven whole years huh." Tony mumbled as he pulled her back into a hug. Unlike earlier, he felt Ziva's body start to shake and it was all he could do not to break down as well. Seven years since Ziva had seen her last.

"She's be ten now, if she is still alive. That's the worst bit. I don't know." Ziva said through her tears.

"We'll find out one day. Then we can put this behind us. We can move forward." Tony added more for himself than for Ziva. Tony's use of the plural sent another wave of tears down Ziva's face. He was so sure that they could do this but she just wasn't. Almost four years ago she had run off to Israel in a crisis of conscience over keeping this secret, terrified that he would push he away and instead he had pulled her closer. Determined to make it work between the two of them, he had stayed with her throughout the worst of the mourning and self hate. She knew why they still weren't in a full on married relationship was because she was still so sure that he blamed her for it happening. If only she had told him sooner than none of this would have happened…

"None of this is your fault.' Tony whispered into her ear almost as though he could hear everything that she was thinking. Even though he was wrong. All of this was her fault and now she was paying for it.

The rest of the evening passed in a kind of melancholy domestic way. They ended up watching a movie that neither of them could remember although they both pretended to before collapsing into bed. Tony attempted to pull Ziva in close but she pulled away.

"Please don't do this again." Tony muttered as she reached for her again.

"I can't. Not tonight." Ziva mumbled as she turned away.

"This self hate Ziva, it won't change a damn thing and you know it." Tony added trying to keep his voice even. The last time she did this, he ended up chasing her across three continents. Ziva didn't reply or turn to face him. Tony left it, to tired to fight tonight, instead opting to fall asleep. As he slipped off he was sure he felt Ziva reach for his hand in the dark.

Diva's sombre mood continued on into the next day as they continued to grasp at straws looking for a lead. Abby had combed through the evidence at least four times to no avail and Gibb's irritation at their lack of a lead was beginning to show.

"Do we have anything?" Gibbs shouted at the team as he came in from a coffee run. Tony looked across at his coworkers, McGee shrugged and Ziva shook her head.

"We've got nothing boss. The wife and kid are coming in today though. Kid, Sara, was staying with a family friend when it happened." Tony told the boss.

"Send them up to the conference room." Gibbs added to them as he stalked off towards Abby's lab.

"Do you think that they will know anything?" Ziva asked Tony as the tail of Gibb's coat went out of view.

"I doubt it. Kids are rarely involved. The wife seemed properly distraught and surprised about her husbands death." Tony added. McGee narrowed his eyes though, Dinohzzo's theory was always that the wife did it yet today he had not yet once brought up the possibility of the wife.

"What about the wife?" McGee spoke up, well someone was going to have to bring it up.

"Subscribing to the DiNozzo theory, probe?" Tony ribbed but shook his head as he did so. "Not this time, she was properly shaken up."

"She seemed it but then we deal with lying spouses all the time." McGee added.

"Lying spouses!" A small middle-aged woman with cropped brown hair and boot cut jeans shrieked. Ziva shot a death glare at McGee before turning to what was obviously Mrs King.

"We do not think that anyone is lying Mrs King. IF you would please follow me to the conf-" Ziva was cut off by the wail of Mrs King.

"Marcus would never lie to me and all I want is for you to find the person who killed Sara's father!" Mrs King shouted as she grabbed onto what seemed like a disinterested ten year old. Sara acted like she hadn't even heard her mother, preferring instead to scuff her tattered reboks along the carpet.

"Mrs King, we are doing all that we can to find out what happened but would you please come with me to the conference room where agent Gibbs will be to help narrow down your husbands last movements." Ziva spoke calmly as she lead the now hysterical Mrs King to the conference room. Meanwhile Tony was distracted by the young girl following them. She had the same sandy coloured hair as Lieutenant King but the small stature of her mother. What was most striking about her though was the ripped jeans and the expensive leather jacket that Sara was wearing. No way was that being afforded on a lieutenants salary or even with the combined income of her parents. Mrs King hadn't been dressed in anything flashy and when they went to talk to Mrs King yesterday, their house had been marine housing with no expensive furniture or flashy watches. In fact, that jacket was the most expensive thing he had seen at the King's.

"That is something very wrong here." Tony quoted in a high voice much to the look of mystery on McGee's face. "Little Shop of Horrors? Come on McGee." McGee shook his head and went back to his computer screen. "McGee, the girl's jacket. That thing is more expensive than anything the King's own. Now why would a ten year old have that amount of cash to flaunt on clothes?"

"Because she saved for years to get it?" McGee questioned, not really following Tony's thoughts.

"No, she had to have gotten the cash from somewhere. I reckon Miss Sara is keeping secrets from her parents." Tony added.

"Now, whilst you are suspecting the ten year old, I have been running down King's credit card statements. Last night he bought a hotel room in the seediest part of town after frequenting a few bars. I thought to myself, why would he do that when he has a house on the base less than 20 minutes from here so I phoned up the hotel desk and asked if they remembered him. Hotel clerk said that he came in with a woman who was definitely not Mrs King, ergo husband was cheating. Wife found out and had him killed." McGee finished with a smug smile on his face.

"Yeah McGee, but where would she have gotten the money to pay for said killer. The King's weren't exactly well off and Mrs King was out of town on a business trip. There are about fifty witnesses to prove it." Tony shot him down.

"I'm still telling Gibbs. I have a motive." McGee said pulling out his phone and calling Gibbs. Tony pulled a face and sank down at his desk. There was something not right about Sara.


	3. Chapter 3

Washington DC

"So boss, the lieutenant was in a hotel the night he was murdered and I took a leaf out of Tony's book. He was having an affair. I called the hotel security and got video feed of the lieutenant checking in." McGee clicked a few buttons on his keyboard and brought up a grainy picture of what was obviously the lieutenant and a blonde woman hanging off his arm. Gibbs watched as he watched the lieutenant check in then take the woman off to what could be assumed to be a hotel room.

"Find the woman." He ordered.

"Already running the face. Should get a match soon." McGee added settling back in his chair. Tony and Ziva, who had been listening quietly to this exchange throughout nodded.

"Seems toady." Ziva added.

"Fishy, the term is fishy, but I have to agree. Money on the mistress. Should we talk to the wife again? If the wife found out about the mistress then she could have offed the husband." Tony added.

"Except that she was on a business trip that weekend." Ziva countered.

"She could have paid someone." Tony added, not willing to give up his argument on the wife.

"Why is it every time we get a case where there is an affair, you always go for the wife?" Ziva threw her head back in exasperation.

"Because I am so rarely wrong." Tony smiled.

"You are wrong every single time." Ziva argued.

"Shut it. Both of you." Gibbs barked just as the dinger went off on McGee's computer. They all watched as McGee pulled up a picture of the woman on a DC drivers licence.

"Name is Cindy McEvans. Works as a hair stylist at one of the boutiques." McGee read out as Tony and Ziva started to get the coats.

"Go talk to her." Gibbs ordered as Tony yelled out,

"Already on it boss."

The trip to see Cindy McEvans should have taken fifteen minutes but with a crash that held them up and Tony getting them lost, the journey took more than an hour. By the time they pulled up to Boutique and went inside, both of them were tetchy and not looking forward to the meeting.

"If you hadn't tried to take that short cut, we would have been here more than an hour ago." Ziva seethed as they got out of the car.

"Well I'm sorry that I didn't want to crawl past that crash." Tony retorted as they went inside the small yet cozy shop. The inside was small but fitted with what looked like expensive furniture and state of the art hair styling tools. Ziva couldn't help but admire the extensive amount of tools that they had available. Meanwhile Tony had gone up to the receptionist and was enquiring after Cindy McEvans.

"Yeah, she's just in the back. I can go get her?" The twenty something receptionist asked looking a little unsure.

"That would be great." The receptionist turned and headed towards the backroom as Tony looked at Ziva who was now studying a magazine depicting the various styles that the boutique could offer.

"Shopping for a new hairstyle?" Tony asked peering over her shoulder. "I like the one you have now."

"I know, I am just looking at it. Hey, I'm sorry for snapping earlier. It's been a rough week and…" Ziva started to apologize.

"Don't apologize. Sign of weakness." Tony interrupted.

"Not between us. This week has been harder than most." Ziva tried to explain.

"I know. It's not just you who is hurting."

"I know. I have been forgetting that it is not just me who is suffering and it was not right of me to snap at you as well." Ziva added quietly as she sought forgiveness in his eyes. Tony pulled her into a hug whispering "It's okay" into her ear.

"Um hi, I'm Cindy McEvans. Rachel said that you were looking for me?" The blonde woman from the video asked sounding unsure about whether she should interrupt them.

"Yes, I'm Agent DiNozzo and this is my partner Agent David from NCIS." Tony started paving the way for Ziva to continue the conversation.

"We would like you to answer some questions about your whereabouts last Monday."

"Why?" Cindy asked reproachfully.

"We believe that you may have some information regarding the murder of a Lieutenant Marcus King. Do you know him?" Ziva continued as she held up the military photo of Lieutenant King. Tony studied Cindy's face as she looked at the photo. Her eyes stayed on him a long time as she took the photo.

"Yes I know him. He came in here a couple of months ago looking for a gift for his daughter. We hit it off and he asked me out for drinks. We have been seeing each other a couple of nights a week since." Cindy said wistfully.

"Were you with the lieutenant on Monday night?" Tony pressed pulled her out of her trip down memory lane.

"Yes. We went out for dinner then we checked into a local motel. He told me he would call me but he never did. I guess that's why he didn't then. He was dead." Cindy spluttered out the last bit as she broke down into sobs.

"Miss McEvans, did you know that Lieutenant King was married?" Ziva asked trying to keep her voice gentle.

"He said he had just finalized his divorce. I never saw his ex-wife or daughter. I stayed in the hotel until check out time which was around 11." Cindy added as she saw the look that passed between Tony and Ziva. "You can check the video surveillance. I think they had cameras there."

"Thank you, Miss McEvans. If you remember anything else then please give us a call." Tony handed her his card as they turned to leave.

"There is one thing. He kept saying that he was sure that his daughter Sara was up to something. He never said what but that she seemed to be in some kind of trouble. He was really worried about her. Said he had some kind of weird feeling, you know? I guess it's something that only parents would get." Cindy said as she pocketed the card. Tony couldn't help but feel slightly smug as they walked out of the shop.

The car journey back was unusually quiet for Tony and Ziva. Neither of them really wanted to discuss the taboo between them but neither of them wanted to be alone. The result was uncomfortable silence.

"Do you want to watch a movie tonight?" Tony eventually asked as they pulled into the NCIS car pool.

"Yes." Ziva replied quietly. "If we can get away from work at a decent hour. You pick something." She added as she correctly interpreted Tony's next question.

"We can have pizza and just a quiet night in." Tony promised as they walked back into the NCIS building.

"Not today, you don't." Gibbs sprang out of nowhere. "We have got a murderer to find. What did Miss McEvans have to say?"

"Well boss, she has an alibi on the security tapes. She was seeing Lieutenant King and believed him to be going through a divorce. She mentioned something interesting though, she said that the lieutenant was worried about his daughter." Tony finished. "I'm going to do some more research on Sarah. The leather jacket she was wearing was definitely too expensive for her to be wearing."

"I'm going to help him." Ziva added hoping to head Gibbs off of their earlier conversation. It was no secret that they were close but their relationship or non relationship had escalated in the past few years. Even since Tony had dragged Ziva back from Israel, they had been seen as a couple but that didn't mean that Gibbs was any more comfortable with it. Even Ziva wasn't sure what they were. They acted married but the physical side of their relationship was sporadic and often coupled with trips out of town. Still they stayed over at each other's places but actually living together still wasn't a thing. McGee had once commented on that they were essentially living together but spread across two apartments. They spent way more time together than they did apart but they still hadn't managed to have a discussion about what was stopping them from actually moving in together.

"Ziva," Gibbs called her back into the elevator. Ziva took a deep breath and followed Gibbs back into the elevator making eye contact with Tony as the doors shut. Gibbs flicked the emergency stop switch whilst turning to face her.

"You have been distracted for the past week. Why?" Gibbs didn't beat around the bush.

"It's complicated." Ziva said evasively.

"DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked still not one for long sentences.

"Not him directly."

"Then what?" Ziva struggled, mentally debating between closing the subject and telling the boss her (and Tony's) biggest secret."

"Do you remember the first undercover mission Tony and I went on? The mission where were a married couple?" She started staring into Gibb's eyes looking for some sign of recognition. He nodded, indicating for her to continue.

"Well, I guess you could say we took are jobs a little too seriously. I got pregnant from that mission."


	4. Chapter 4

"You got pregnant." Gibbs repeated looking at Ziva with narrowed eyes. "With DiNozzo's child?"

"Yes." Ziva nodded as Gibbs stared at her in disbelief. "I didn't show for months and then you went on your mexican sabbatical and I went back to Israel for a short period. She was born so early that it was almost guaranteed that she wouldn't survive." Ziva fell silent at this as she let herself remember her daughter then.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Gibbs demanded still trying to get over that Ziva had a daughter. "Where is she now? What happened to her? Does DiNozzo know?" It was the most that Ziva had ever heard him say in one go. Each word with laced with what sounded like anger laced with concern with a heavy layer of disbelief.

"My father found out. As I spent more time with NCIS it was becoming apparent to him that my loyalty to Mossad was fading and I guess having a family in DC would be the nail in my tomb." Gibbs didn't correct her as he listened on. "Because of how small she was, she was in the NICU for months and my father bribed the hospital to never let me see her. As soon as I had recovered I was put on a plane back to DC. I didn't tell Tony at first. I didn't think she would survive and I wasn't allowed to see her and he had also started his assignment with Jeanne then so I couldn't tell him. It nearly killed me but I did it." Ziva continued stopping to take a deep breath every now and again. Every sentence nearly brought her to tears but she kept on going. Stopping now just wasn't an option.

"And your daughter?" Gibbs prompted leaning against the back of the stilled elevator. The lights did nothing to hide the tears now falling down Ziva's cheeks.

"She survived. Against everything she survived. I was on the phone to Tel Aviv every night trying to see how she was doing. My Aunt Nettie was the only one who would help me. She was in the hospital for almost six months before she was well enough to leave but when she did it was just going from one nightmare to another. I was fighting heartbreak from Tony dating Jeanne and another worse type of heartbreak in that despite my daughter was well enough, I still wasn't allowed to see her." Gibbs felt a twinge of empathy for her. Kelly had been in the hospital for a few days when she was born but to deal with that for six months on the brink of never knowing whether your child would still be there. At least when Kelly had gone, it had been heartbreaking but quick.

"I started trying to go back to Israel as much as possible to see her. The first time I saw her since the day she was born was when she was nearly a year old. My father was using her against me. Everything move I made was under scrutiny with my visits to her being restricted and you may think that my father was evil for sending me to the desert, he used my daughter against me." Ziva added. Gibbs silently berated himself for missing what had been right under his nose the whole time.

"And Micheal Rivkin?" Gibbs asked. He was fairly sure that Ziva never had feelings for him now.

"He was there as a messenger for my father. He said that if I helped him, he would bring her to the US. I still hadn't told Tony about her but in that moment, it didn't matter. I could have her with me in the US and we could be a proper family. I was beyond angry with Tony when he shot Michael because he had thrown away any chance he had of bringing our daughter to the US. HE didn't know it and I wasn't going to tell him that. I stayed behind in Israel to be with her. She was growing up too quickly and I was missing it. It broke my heart when she didn't recognize me when I was allowed to see her. I stayed because I thought that I would get to see her. It didn't." Ziva paused here to gauge Gibb's reaction. He was standing there in what looked like pure shock. Ziva looked down at the floor trying to gather her thoughts. It wasn't as bad as when she had told Tony but she could sense his disappointment in her exceedingly well in the tiny cramped space with its grey walls and poor lighting. She mustered up the courage to look him in his bright blue eyes, silently seeking permission to continue. Gibbs nodded.

"I was in her room. She lived at my father's house with a rotation of nannies to look after her. I had managed to spend almost three weeks with her and amongst all the betrayal that I felt from NCIS, it was bittersweet. We had spent the day on the beach and it was the first time that I had been with her without someone watching. She had been so happy and I considered running away with her to someplace else." Ziva stopped as the sudden what ifs began to over whelm her.

"I was just holding her when they came. Two of my fathers men came and and dragged her away from me. I tried to fight but they over powered me. They took me to my father when he told me to go to Somalia. That was when he also told me I would never see her again. When I entered that camp, I was not lying when I told you I did not mean to live through it. I did not think that they would keep my alive." Ziva's voice broke off then and Gibbs then decided to hug her. Something he usually only reserved for Abby but now Ziva was the one in need.

"What happened then?" Gibbs asked her once she was able to speak again.

"Once you rescued me, I quit Mossad. It didn't stop me from looking for her but my father had made it clear that I would never see her again. I didn't tell Tony for years about her. I was in pain and I would never wish that agony on anyone else. When my father came to visit me before he died, I thought that perhaps he had weakened and was going to bring her to me. I think he was going to tell me where she was the night that he died and that was why I was so angry. I sought revenge against Bodnar, not because I was mourning my father but more of mourning my family. Here she was right under my nose and then she was snatched away again." Gibbs didn't know what to say to this. He could understand her pain better than anyone having lost his own daughter but Kelly's death and Ziva's daughter's disappearance were so different but neither were less painful than the other.

"When we all quit and I went to Israel, I was now actively trying to track her down. When Tony found me in that farmhouse, I told him. I literally thought he would never want to see me again after what I did but Tony is a far better man than that. We have spent the past three years looking for her but nothing has come up. I don't know what my father did to ensure that I would never see her again but it is working. Every day I think about her and every day it hurts even more." Ziva finished quietly. She looked a little relieved to have finally told him.

"How many people knew about this?" Gibbs asked carefully focusing on Ziva's tired face.

"Just Tony. People look at you differently when they realize that you have lost someone. I saw it with my father but it would be worse with a child. You of all people should know that Gibbs. I didn't tell you because I don't need pity. I didn't tell Tony because I didn't want to hurt him the same way that I was hurting. Abby would just be a nightmare to deal with and McGee…" Ziva trailed off as Gibbs nodded in understanding. He did know what that was like. He hadn't told anyone at the agency about Shannon and Kelly either until he was forced to.

"What was her name?" Gibbs asked as he leant towards the emergency shut off button to switch it back on.

"Sophie." Ziva smiled as she managed a small laugh. "In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have called her that. It made Tony laugh though." Gibbs shut his eyes trying to clear the image of the person that Ziva had pretended to be whilst undercover from his mind.

From across the bullpen, Tony could see Ziva and Gibbs coming back out of the elevator. Ziva had obviously been crying and he had to fight the urge to run over and hug her. It didn't take a genius to work out what they had spent so long in the elevator discussing. Gibbs didn't look like he was going to murder him, quite to the contrary, his eyes seemed softer and almost pitying. Ziva would hate that. She hated pity from anyone including himself. Although he had lost a daughter as well, Tony had never actually known her so he wasn't sure exactly how much he had lost. From what Ziva said about her though, it was enough for Tony to spend his time wondering the what ifs. He had been angry with her for a while for keeping him in the dark but once he saw the pure agony that Ziva suffered every day, he understood why she had. He too, now spend hours looking at the missing child websites and wondering where on earth their daughter was.

"Update." Gibbs broke Tony's train of thought with questions about the case.

"I checked the video surveillance for Cindy McEvans around the time of the murder. Although there is no surveillance directly in the hotel rooms, there is in the corridors. I saw her enter the room with lieutenant King but she never left. The room itself is on the third floor so there is noway that she could have snuck out. She did the walk of shame almost and hour later. She is cleaner than their bedsheets not that that was hard." He snickered as Ziva hit him.

"The wife know?" Gibbs questioned.

"McGee is on his way to pick her up." Tony interrupted.

"Bring her to the conference room and check on Sara. She might know something."

"So Mrs King, we have uncovered evidence saying that your husband might have been having an affair." Ziva said pulling up the hotel footage of Lieutenant King with Ms McEvans. "Do you know her?" Mrs King's eyes filled with tears as she shook her head. She gratefully took the box of tissues that Tony offered her as Ziva encouraged her to look at the footage once more.

"No. He said he was going to the Pentagon the night before he died. I didn't think that he would be seeing some floozy." She said as the tears gave way to anger. Next to her, Sara was looking distinctly uncomfortable. He sandy coloured hair seemed to hide most of her face and it was becoming clear to Tony that she would rather be anywhere but here. A tatty looking backpack hung at her feet.

"We believe that your husband may have been thinking about divorce." Ziva prompted. Mrs King looked astonished before her features morphed quickly into anger.

"A divorce!" She yelled startling Tony. "We never spoke of divorce! How can you even suggest that?! Marcus may have been having an affair but we were certainly nowhere near divorce! If he was still alive then I would certainly be asking for one! Oh he should be glad that he is dead because if he was alive now then…" He yelling came to an abrupt halt when she saw the look that past between Tony and Ziva. "You think I did this? I would never have killed Marcus, affair or not! I am angry with him now but he is still the father of my child. I would never kill him. Come on Sara." She instructed to her daughter now staring intently at the table top. Sara came out of whatever day dream she had been having and followed her mother out. Tony watched them leave and noticed how unsure Sara seemed, almost as if she knew what was happening.

"I think that Sara knows more than she is telling." Tony said in an undertone to Ziva as they watched them leave the conference room.

"You know, I think you could be right on this one." Ziva replied as she saw Sara's face morph into one of quiet concentration.


	5. Chapter 5

Washington DC

Gibbs had just bought a fresh oesophagus-burningly strong coffee and was watching in the car for Sara to come out of school. Ever since Tony and Ziva had identified her as the one with the information he had decided to go to talk to her. Ever since Ziva's big reveal about her past, he had kept his agents under more scrutiny than before. What he couldn't believe was that he had missed it. He had known Ziva for over eleven years but had only in the past few days heard the most information about herself. He strained his memory back eleven years to try and pick up some sign that Ziva had been pregnant. He had known that she was developing feelings for Tony but she hadn't appeared to be gaining any weight or shown any other sign. In a weird way he was proud of her for coming clean to DiNozzo about it but still felt a little put out that she hadn't come to him first. He thought of her as a daughter and it was like, he suddenly thought, realizing that she wasn't the little girl that Kelly had been and that she wouldn't be coming to him for everything anymore. He took a sip of the coffee trying to drown out his mixed emotions towards Ziva when he saw Sara nervously trying to leave the school. Her backpack was slung over her shoulder as she made her way quickly across the street looking constantly over her shoulder as if she believed someone to be following her. Gibbs got out of the car and followed her across to a disused park. Sara was sitting nervously on a bench, biting her nails as Gibbs approached her.

"Sara, Agent Gibbs, mind if we talk?" Gibbs said settling himself beside her. Sara made no move to move away.

"Do you want to talk about my Dad?" Sara asked as she tore one of her hangnails.

"We can talk about him or anything else. We just needed to speak to you without your mother around." Gibbs answered.

"She is super upset at the moment. Keeps muttering about how she can't believe that he cheated." Sara snorted.

"You don't sound so surprised."

"I'm not. They argued all the time. It was kinda annoying mostly. I just used to stay out of the house a lot. Now that Dad's gone, Mom won't leave me alone. She insists on driving me to school when I was fine walking before." Sara muttered.

"That why you playing hooky?" Gibbs asked her.

"That and a million other reasons." Sara said suddenly looking a mixture between much older than her ten years and really scared. "Agent Gibbs, I think I may need your help. I think I might know why my Dad was killed." She said her voice turning scared with urgency. Gibbs turned to face her as Sara looked up to him with a look on her face that he associated with pure terror. "We need to go. They will be watching us." Gibbs looked around but couldn't see the tell tale signs of someone watching them. Still he took Sara and let her towards the car.

As they sped back towards the Navy Yard, Gibbs noticed that Sara seemed to be growing more and more nervous but she seemed to relax once they were in the confines of the Navy Yard. Sara gripped her bag as they made their way up into the elevator. As the elevator kicked into action Sara leant over and shut it off.

"What happened to your Dad, Sara?" Gibbs asked her.

"I don't know exactly what happened to him. A couple of months ago, I was offered a chance to make some cash on the side. My parents don't make much money and I wanted something of my own. The guy said that I could act as a courier for someone. Agent Gibbs, am I in trouble?" Sara suddenly asked realizing that pouring out this information was probably going to get her into trouble.

"It depends on how much you help us." Gibbs prompted.

"So, if I tell you how much I know, you will drop any charges that could be made and keep me safe?" Sara asked. Gibbs seemed a little perturbed at how much she seemed to know about the criminal justice system. She seemed so young.

"We will see what we can do about that but yes." Gibbs promised her.

"I think we were dealing drugs to people. Linda just said that if we didn't ask questions then it would be easier. I would get a call on my cell and I would take a bag of what looked like coke or weed across to the other side of town. We could keep a cut of the profits too. I was never caught either especially if you wear a girl scout outfit, people just think you are selling cookies." Sara confided in Gibbs laughing at how easy it was. Gibbs made a mental note of this.

"How much did your Dad know about this?" Gibbs asked her as Sara laughed about the girl scout cookies.

"He didn't know much about it. Well, he didn't until one time I thought both my parents would be working late so I figured it would be easy to sneak back into the house. Turned out my Dad was home early. I had just gotten home from picking up a delivery. I was going to take it out the next day on my Saturday rounds. My Dad didn't like my explanation about why my bag was so full and when he looked inside, I thought he was gonna spew. He yelled at me for ages and grounded me for a month. Didn't matter though, he is never home to enforce it and I knew he was working the next day so I wasn't so worried. He took away my coke though. Properly pissed Linda off when I told her that my Dad had taken over $300 worth of it. My Dad was being a proper pain in the ass though and Linda said that she would deal with it. I didn't think that she meant like that…" Sara broke down into sobs. " I mean we didn't always get along but he was still my Dad." She added. "I'm really gonna miss him. He cared, you know?" Gibbs hugged her trying to offer a small piece of comfort that he could before moving onto his next question.

"Can you describe Linda? And do you know who it was who approached you about this whole drug dealing deal?" Gibbs asked her. This was the most vital bit of all. Who the hell this Linda person was.

"I never saw Linda. She only called us. As for who got me into this? Lots of kids at school do. I was just approached by one of the older guys about it but I don't want to get anyone into trouble." Sara's response was not as information rich as the others but it was a start.

"Thank you Sara. What you have told me is really helpful." Gibbs said gratefully.

"Hey, Agent Gibbs, just something else. Linda was super cautious about undercover cops. She said she only like working with kids because we are too young to be cops. If you are thinking about sending in someone… they don't take kindly to undercover guys. There was one from DC Metro that I heard on the grapevine. We knew him as Dave but he lasted less than a week before Linda figured it out." Sara added as she switched back on the elevator. Gibbs had to repress a shudder. He knew which detective that had been. Detective Richard Morris had been found half dead in a warehouse. The doctors had said he was lucky to be alive.

After his meeting with Sara, she had been taken to the safe house and her mother notified of the situation. Not the whole situation but enough to pacify her. It seemed increasingly likely that this drug dealing event was what had gotten Lieutenant King killed rather than the affair. So they had started searching through DC records of children being arrested and trying to find out more information about this Linda person. McGee had attempted to trace the number of Sara's cell but all that came up was a prepaid cell that was in use for a week before it changed. Whoever this Linda person was, she was being careful.

Three weeks later, they still had no new information concerning the King case. Sara had been pressed for more information but they couldn't bring anyone else in for questioning without raising the suspicions of the leader of the dealing. Essentially they had hit a dead end. Tony and Ziva had run down every lead going but it was like being in a maze with no way out. Every turn they made, they were hit by a wall.

"Someone, give me something!" Gibbs yelled coming back into the squad room. Tony and Ziva looked at each other hoping that perhaps the other had found a lead in the past five minutes but both had blank faces.

"Why haven't we got anything?" Gibbs yelled.

"These people are careful. So careful, in fact, that we don't have a name for their leader or anyway to pin this on them other than the word of a ten year old which is probably what they planned in the first place." Ziva said rubbing her hands together to avoid the glare that came off their boss.

"Boss, call for you in MTAC." McGee yelled from the top floor. Gibbs flew past them and went up the stairs to MTAC. He scanned his eye and went into the empty, apart from McGee, room. It was never this empty. On the screen, there was a balding man with kind eyes sitting in front of a Union Jack flag.

"Good afternoon, Special Agent Gibbs. I am Sam Jones from MI5 J Unit." He introduced himself. Gibbs stared at him.

"What the hell is J unit?" Gibbs asked skipping over the pleasantries.

"We have intel suggesting that you are attempting to track down a drug dealing operation within Washington DC but that you have had no luck with it." Sam Jones stated ignoring the question. "Unit J has some intel we would like to share as well as a proposal for a joint operation but first you need to sign a full nondisclosure act which if breached will force you to spend the rest of your life in a federal prison. We have to keep our Unit safe which requires you to keep us secret then we will tell you who we are." Sam Jones continued. Now that Gibbs had heard him say more, he realized that Sam Jones didn't have the North London accent that he had come to associate with Ducky and all the British Royal Navy officers but rather something he guessed was more northern. He reminded himself to ask Ducky later on. Meanwhile, McGee handed him the form which was about fifty pages long probably detailing the brutal and gory death he would face if he so much as mentioned what Unit J was. Gibbs signed it then handed it back to McGee.

"Who the hell are you?" Gibbs reiterated his previous question.

"Unit J is an incredibly specialized part of MI5. We have about fifty or so active agents and a further twenty or so potential recruits. We are small but none the less effective. Our proposal is to have one of our agents work jointly with you in infiltrating the drug dealing group. Our agent is in a unique position to not be suspected as an undercover cop as you would say." Sam added.

"How they hell does an accent stop you from standing out anymore than one of our guys would?" Gibbs questioned. Sam laughed at the joke whilst Gibbs glared at him.

"It wouldn't. The agent in question is ten."


	6. Chapter 6

Snowdonia, Wales, United Kingdom.

"Well my little bunnies, it seems you have finished last so you can do without a tent tonight and it seems like you're too late for supper as well." Sargent North, MI5's most terrifying instructor said cheerfully to the last two trainees to make it to base camp. Ten year old Sophie and twelve year old Benjamin stood shivering in front of the monstrous instructor and glaring at each other. Sophie was pissed off. Despite being an agent in MI5's best kept secretive junior department more commonly known as Unit J, she had been subject to one of the most gruelling training exercises all because Benjamin couldn't keep his fitness up when working abroad. Sophie had lived at HQ for as far back as she could remember, so the five am wake up to do combat training had been ingrained within her from Day 1. Benjamin, on the other hand, was a new recruit, recently passed Level One training at the same time as Sophie but all the fitness he accumulated on the tough four month course had been obliterated at the nearest McDonalds after a three month long mission to Texas. MI5 had then decided that all the Unit J agents needed a touch up to remind them of the importance of staying healthy which had entitled a long weekend trekking across the UK's most miserable mountain range.

Sargent North confiscated their tent and left the two kids glaring at each other.

"You couldn't have walked just a little faster? Just a little, so both of us could have a tent tonight?"" Sophie screamed at Benjamin. She had been putting up with his whining all day, and despite being a full two years younger, they had both based Level One training at the same time. The difference being that Sophie had gone on daily runs and kept up with her combat training in her two month mission to the Gaza strip whereas Benjamin's mission had gone down the toilet along with his fitness.

"We can't all be perfect you know. Not all of us were born to be spies." Benjamin tried to yell but his lack of fitness meant that it came out as a pitiful whine.

"We were on the same training course. You could have gone running every day if you wanted to, but NO, you had to go stuffing your face with Nuggets and burgers which now means that my weekend has gone because of your lack of fitness. And not only that, I have to be paired with you so I don't even get a tent tonight." Sophie screamed at him. The rage she had been feeling all day was running through her causing every nerve cell to stand on end as she pictured throwing him down the mountain.

"It's freezing out here." Benjamin tried to head her off.

"Yeah, thanks to you!" She added before storming away from him to sit behind a gorse bush. "Stupid idiot. Couldn't even try to keep it together." Sophie muttered to herself as she stomped across the muddy ground, hugging her jacket to herself. "Why did I have to paired up with him? I carried all of his stuff as well as my own and now I'm just tired and aching all because that idiot couldn't keep it together." She sank down to hug her knees to herself using the gorse bush as a break against the chilly January wind. Sophie had been a member of the select Unit J for as long as she could remember. She supposed that she had probably had parents once but unlike her fellow agents who had joined Unit J later on in their lives, she had no recollection of them. Every time she asked her handler about them, she was met with the same response of "your grandfather sent you here and we don't know what happened to them." She suspected that Elaine was lying to her about it but when she really thought about it, she had never needed them so why should she need them now. She had been one of the youngest members of Unit J as the minimum age to become an active agent was ten but they started accepting potential recruits anywhere between six and twelve. They had made an acceptation for Sophie though because her grandfather had been an agent when Unit J was first founded. Sophie had seen pictures of him in the memorial hall when he was the same age as her. He had escaped the death camps in Poland during the Second World War and come to England where he had been trained to go undercover at the tender age of eight. He had been young but still managed to gather valuable intel that they suspected had shortened the war by as much as a year. He had survived, left England and gone on to fight in the battle for Israel. Sophie had never met him but she couldn't help but be a little proud of him. It was kind of nice being a Unit J legacy.

The night passed slowly and by the time the sun rose the next morning, Sophie doubted she had ever been so cold. Thankfully because she had gotten no sleep last night, she was awake when they were serving what counted as breakfast which was thankfully warm. It also meant that their stuff was already packed up and ready to go. An extra hour for walking would allow Benjamin the time to get to the next checkpoint and hopefully to the end point before dark. Sophie had already decided that a lunch stop wasn't happening. All she wanted to do now was go home.

"Get your arse moving." She muttered to Benjamin as she heaved her backpack on over the top of her blue anorak. She had rearranged the kit early in the morning to give herself the heavier stuff. It would be a pain all day but she would rather that than fail the exercise and spend her next weekend in the company of the most pathetic git she had ever met.

"I'm coming." Benjamin muttered as he followed her down the muddy terain across the mud encrusted mountain of Snowdonia. Sophie could feel the straps of the backpack digging into her small frame. Occasionally it would get caught on her dark curl hair that made her look more middle eastern than her accent suggested. She had spent the previous two months in the Gaza Strip in which the coldest it got there was 20oC but here in Snowdonia it was freezing at the best of times and she was not liking the wake up call. Still, the physical exertion of carrying the heavier of the two packs and walking up and down the mountain soon warmed her up. On another day, she could even appreciate the rugged english beauty that came with Snowdonia but the effort required to see it vs the actual beauty was not enough.

Luckily for Sophie, Benjamin had managed to get his act together enough for them to make it to the end point in time. The minibus ride back to HQ was long which gave Sophie enough time to get in a well deserved nap before the bus was rumbling through the last country lanes required to get back to HQ. At first glance, HQ could seem like a rather posh boarding school come manor house which Sophie supposed it once had been. There were massive Do Not Enter signs on the gates and people had always been hesitant to go near it. The great winding turrets that looked like they had come straight out of period drama had always made Sophie feel at home. She grabbed her muddy backpack and went through the boot room where all exercise and hiking kit was stored. She shoved her hiking boots into her boot locker before trudging up the back stairs to the agents' rooms. Sophie's room was in the far end as she had only passed Level One training in the past few months. Her room before that had been with the younger kids in another area of the house. Her room itself had been redecorated but some of the original wooden panelling was there. Sophie's room was actually the most coveted as it had a back passage leading to the kitchens. Sophie loved her old room with it's double bed, widescreen TV and her own bathroom. All the rooms were identical but Sophie had always loved hers. She threw her backpack on the floor before stripping off and jumping in the shower. When she was a junior, she had to share the bathroom with all the other juniors and it was always annoying when someone had used up all her shampoo and soap. For most of the other agents, the novelty of having your own room and bathroom had worn off but due to Sophie's mission to the Gaza Strip, the novelty had yet to wear off and Sophie still enjoyed being able to shower in complete privacy. She was halfway through trying to put conditioner in her hair when she heard her iPhone in the other room start to ring. The annoying tone that she had set almost six months ago caused her jump and try to get a towel around herself to go answer it. She stepped out of the shower, leaving it running and ran to grab her phone before it stopped ringing.

"Hello?" She said into the phone.

"Hi Sophie? It's Sam Jones here. Congrats on your promotion from the Gaza mission. I have another mission for you. Can you come up to mission control in about half an hour? I know what you have just come back from a training exercise so I am just hoping to catch you before you sleep." Sam Jones's voice was always calm but Sophie could hardly contain her excitement. Two missions less than six months out of training was almost unheard of.

"Yeah. I can be there." Sophie hurriedly said.

"Okay. See you then. Don't grab supper, we can have it in my office. There is quite a lot to talk about with this mission."


	7. Chapter 7

# Split Across the Continents 7

Unit J HQ

Sophie finished her shower slowly, mulling over what Sam Jones had said. Major missions like this were quite rare for someone her age as they were usually delegated to the older and more experienced agents, then again, Sophie's last mission had record breaking effects as she had handled it far beyond the parameters of what was expected which had ended with her saving the lives of almost a hundred people directly and several thousand. It had gone so well that she had been promoted to a rank normally held by the fifteen to sixteen year old agents. Not much came with this promotion apart from bragging rights and on occasion the better missions. Benjamin's last mission had been a partial success but his epic failure in the fitness department had prevented any type of promotion. After her promotion, Sophie had rubbed her promotion in his face so much that Benjamin hadn't spoken to her for days until they were forced to go to Wales. Karma's a bitch was the last thing that Sophie thought before her phone rang for the second time that day.

"Hi Sophie, it's Elaine." Sophie internally groaned at this. Elaine was her handler, essentially a mixture between parental figure, social worker, teacher, and a huge pain in the ass. She was the sort of woman who didn't like her whole intelligence career being thrown away to act as a glorified form teacher but underneath that, Sophie guessed that she might actually care about her.

"Hi Elaine." Sophie said carefully trying to predict the reason she was calling. She had done all her homework, she hadn't failed the training exercise, she had been mean to Benjamin but then that wasn't anything new.

"We need to have a talk about your mission preparedness. You have only just returned from your last mission and before that was Level One training so your last solid month in school was almost six months ago." Elaine continued as Sophie groaned.

"But I can't go round turning down missions… thats the whole reason I went through three months of hell to begin with!" Sophie exclaimed as she started to try to run a brush through her tangled mess of curls.

"I am going to put you through academic assessment then if you pass, you will be deemed fit to go on this mission. But bear this in mind Sophie, you haven't actually seen the mission dossier yet or had the briefing so you might turn it down anyway." Sophie nearly laughed at this, nobody ever turned down a mission. It was as effective at shutting down your intelligence career as having your face on the front of the evening news. Nobody did that and hoped to be offered a place on a good mission.

"Why do I have to do academic assessment? I was above everyone else my age anyway." Sophie whined.

"We train you to be the best you can be at everything. Six months away from school is bound to have had an impact and we need to assess it before you can be deemed mission ready." Sophie made a face at this before hanging up. She was well aware that this wouldn't help her case at all but she had just spent a weekend on a cold mountain, she was ready to be pissy.

"Good evening, Sophie," The ever calm voice of Sam Jones radiated through his office. As one of the most senior mission controllers, Sam had one of the biggest offices and true to his nature it was tidy with little whale paper weights organizing everything. The old leather couches near the window fit right in with the old building aspect of HQ but the shiny Macbook with the adjoining screens around his desk contrasted so greatly that it made Sophie's eyes hurt. Sam motioned for her to sit on one of the couches whilst he approached her with a shiny manilla folder bearing the name "Operation PixieDust" written on it. The name was so random that Sophie almost burst out laughing. Sam motioned for her to open it and as she did, a dossier with the same name fell out as well as some background reading. Her last mission had been thrown together last minute and she hadn't had time to read a mission briefing but clearly this one had some more time behind it.

Mission Dossier for Sophie D. Please don't remove this from Mission Preparation.

A brief history of drug smuggling.

Drug smuggling has been one of the largest and most difficult of all illegal activities to shut down since the signing of the International Opium Convention in 1912. Since then specialized task forces have been set up around the world to combat this with hundreds of major organized crime rings and gangs heading the distribution. Before the use of heroin was prohibited, it was commonly used as an aesthetic for surgeries with its derivative, morphine, still in common use today. It's effects are powerful and combined with its deadly addiction, leaves its users completely under it's control often leading them to steal from family, friends and have been known to commit murder in order to achieve their next high.

Andrew Henderson was born in the 1972 in North London to wealthy parents who founded their success on a small private airline called Henderson Air. He was described by his teachers to be intelligent, but easily distracted and they predicted a bright future for him if he was able to knuckle down. During his teenage years, Henderson was expelled after being caught selling cocaine to his peers at school. His drug test indicated that he was a fairly regular user. After completing rehab, Henderson attended sixth form college where he studies business, geography and mathematics achieving high grades in all of them. He was then later expelled from Bristol University after being caught yet again with cocaine in his room. After serving a brief prison sentence in 1993, Henderson dropped off the radar. Henderson resurfaced in 1999 when he was found to have known links to a cocaine smuggling gang that the leader, Rick Greyson, was arrested for in 2002. It is believed that Henderson escaped the initial wave of arrests and took over as leader and reestablished connections across the globe with Henderson smuggling drugs in at as many as 16 different ports in the UK. Police are unable to make any arrests due to inability to tie him to any crimes. Henderson changes burn phones every week and it is impossible to send any adult agents to infiltrate as Henderson will suspect them.

The American connection began when it appeared that AHG cocaine was being smuggled in to the US from the UK in the bags of school children on a school trip. AHG cocaine has since been found entering the US through ports as well as through the air. American DEA have since been investigating many other schools on the exchange program funded by AHG. So far, 20 schools within Washington DC, New York City, San Diego, Boston, and Seattle have been found to have AHG cocaine within them. AHG uses children as their dealers for several reasons as children receive lighter if any prison sentences, children have easy access to users and they are always on the lookout for ways to make extra cash.

The Unit J mission: In Washington DC, a navy officer was found to be murdered with his ten year old daughter having links to AHG. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) believes that the murder of Lieutenant Marcus King is related to the DC gang of AHG and upon further questioning of his daughter Sarah King, Sarah admitted to having been threatened by AHG. Unit J agent Sophie's job is to infiltrate the DC gang of AHG and gather intel regarding the running of AHG within DC. She will be posing as Sophie Hayes, a ten year old girl who has been recently expelled from her British boarding school in the UK and instead is attending James Morgen Middle School where she will attempt to become involved with AHG. Sophie's history of expulsion should allow her to become more involved with AHG as her expulsion shows an ability to take risks. She will be living with two NCIS agents (to be determined) who will pose as her parents who will attempt to find out more about AHG from the adult perspective.

This mission has been classified as MEDIUM RISK as it involves close interaction with known violent gang members as well as involvement with drugs. There will be a mission controller working directly with NCIS in Washington DC but the agent should be advised that she will be working independently for the majority of the mission. Unit J agents are reminded that any voluntary Class A drug ingestion will cause for them to be expelled.

Sophie finished reading the mission briefing and looked up at Sam.

"Why the hell is this mission called Operation PixieDust?" Sophie asked him trying to hide a grin.

"It wasn't mentioned in the briefing but we believe that the cocaine used, has a street name of pixie dust. The Americans thought it up, not me. Have you got any real questions about the mission?" Sam smiled sheepishly.

"Do they know I'm a kid or are we going to spring it on them like last time?" Sophie asked remembering back to her previous mission. She had been staying with an Israeli Intelligence officer who hadn't been told she was ten until she showed up at the front door.

"They will shortly. I have already spoken to the head case agent, someone called Gibbs? Seemed like a miserable git but you can't always get the most positive ones. If you agree to the mission then we will probably fly out to DC in the next week or two." Sam added.

"Of course I'll take the mission. I've never been to America before." Sophie smiled really hoping that she could skip her educational assessment before Elaine got on her case again.

Sophie opened the folder and started to settle into some background reading, boring but essential, and started on the cold slice of pizza in Sam's office.

"Just one thing, Elaine has mentioned that you need to have an educational assessment. The american middle school you will be going to will be well below your usual standard so I will talk to Elaine and make sure that your normal school work will be sent with you to DC and you can try to catch up what you missed. This is likely to be a couple of months long so we can't have you skipping school for that long." Sophie groaned at that hoping that that memo had been lost.

"Hey, it's better than you being deemed unfit for missions over something as stupid as an educational assessment." Sam chided.

"I'll do the stupid educational assessment."


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS. Wish I did but I don't.**

"What do you mean the agent is ten?" Gibbs said stunned. If he thought that NCIS occasionally breached the rules, MI5 was on a whole other level.

"Our agent is just as highly qualified as any of your Navy Seals. She has a black belt in Karate and Judo as well as being fluent in…" Sam's voice trailed off then as he consulted a file. "…English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew. She also has experience in hand to hand combat as well as working solo in high pressure undercover situations. She is just as trained as any of you." Sam finished off trying to sound comforting. Sam was used to this sort of reaction from other agencies. Freak outs and refusals to work with them expected but rarely followed through.

"You use children?" Gibbs repeated for the third time. "For undercover missions?" Sam nodded again. Gibbs watched on the screen in MTAC as Sam pulled a paper file and had a look inside.

"For the purposes of the mission it is best if you know her as Sophie Hayes, recently having been expelled from boarding school in the UK coming back to live with her parents. I believe that the two agents who you will use have yet to be decided but we can work on that. I can get the next plane out of Heathrow if you wish to discuss all of this in person. It is more preferable to us as we have to be kept secret, you know?" Sam finished as he started checking his computer screen.

"Yes. Will you be bringing the agent with you?" Gibbs asked wondering how he was going to break this news to the rest of the team.

"No. There is a lot to organize. I will probably arrange for her to fly to DC at the end of next week once all the arrangements have been made. She also has to sit an educational assessment which she isn't too pleased about. " Sam smiled at his last comment. "Also Agent Gibbs? In case I haven't got my point across, this is a completely need to know mission. We have to keep our agent safe and we can't do that if there is a possibility of a leak." Gibbs grunted in response before signalling to end the conversation.

"They use kids, huh?" McGee asked as he picked up the forms detailing the brutal gory death they would all face if they blabbed.

"Seems so. If she is as good as they say she is, then she could get a whole lot of new intel. Not sure about using kids though." Gibbs muttered to McGee.

"Yeah, I mean the average ten year old isn't that smart and this kid sounds like Ziva at age ten or what Ziva would be like having been trained by her father." McGee added as they left MTAC and went down to the squad room where Tony and Ziva were bickering over something unimportant. Gibbs clicked his fingers and pointed towards his private office. Tony and Ziva exchanged confused looks as they all headed towards the elevator. The doors had barely shit before Gibbs slammed down the emergency stop button.

"We have a new lead." Gibbs said as he turned to face the rest of the team.

"Why the secretive meeting in the elevator, boss?" Tony asked before launching into a movie reference about secret meetings in elevators that nobody paid much attention to.

"We will have an undercover agent from MI5 working with us to follow this up." McGee interrupted.

"Why aren't we going undercover and better yet why are MI5 interested?" Ziva asked quickly.

"If you all shut up, I can tell you." McGee interrupted again. "MI5 are interested because the case originated back in Britain. The gang that Sarah was involved in are called AHG named after Andrew Henderson who is a drug smugger who uses children to do his deliveries. The reason we are getting one of their agents to come over here is that AHG are always suspicious of undercover cops and therefore none of us would be able to go in undercover and get into the gang without raising suspicion."

"Then why are one of them doing it?" Tony asked.

"Because the agent is ten, DiNozzo." Gibbs answered. "A kid can infiltrate and gather intel way better than any of you could." The shock on Tony's face was priceless but it was Ziva who commented on it.

"In Mossad, it was not uncommon for terrorist to use children as suicide bombers and as intel gatherers. It never occurred to me to turn the chairs and use children to catch them."

"Turn the tables, Ziva, the idiom is turn the tables." Tony added. "It seems like a good idea but what is happening with their agent? She doing mission planning over here?" He turned this question towards Gibbs who handed the rest of the file to McGee.

"Sam Jones, the mission controller guy, said he would fly out ASAP and discuss mission planning with us. The only thing he said was that the agent that we will be working with for the purposes of the mission would be called Sophie Hayes." McGee added.

"Perfect. That's perfect. " Ziva said sarcastically as she turned away from them and hit the stop switch. As the elevator shuddered back into life, Tony caught sight of the tears that threatened to escape down Ziva's cheek. Once the doors opened, Gibbs hurried McGee out of the doors towards Abby's lab leaving Tony and Ziva in the elevator.

"Ten year old girl called Sophie." Ziva repeated. "I mean, I am doing fine but that it a shot that's a little too personal."

"I know. It's gonna be tough but we will get through it. We always do." Tony said comfortingly as he pulled her into a hug. Ziva pressed her face into his chest as she tried to regain control of herself. "We don't have to take the mission. McGee can become a single father for a few weeks." Tony added and Ziva had managed a watery smile.

"Really Tony, McGee? McGee controlling a ten year old who has supposedly been expelled? That plan would be foiled within about ten minutes. I will be fine, it's just a little too close to home but I will be fine. I have been dealing with this for years. Are you going to be okay with this?" She asked him as she blew her nose.

"Yeah. I think so. I just don't want to screw this up, you know? Find out that I am terrible with kids and that she was better off without me?" Tony confided in the darkness of the elevator. Hopefully she wouldn't see how much this was worrying him.

"You won't screw this up. Only thing we will have to try and get over is that we are sending a kid to infiltrate a known violent gang." Ziva replied as she hit the stop switch sending the elevator juddering back to life.

The first class seat on the British Airways airplane was fantastic. Sophie had already reclined it back into a flat position and was flipping through the entertainment section looking for some of the films that she had missed being released during her training or her time in Gaza. She finally picked one that had won several oscars and flipped the high quality headphones into the jack on the corner of her seat. She had spent the last few hours at Heathrow in the first class lounge getting some very odd looks in her way as she was a ten year old in old jeans and a pair of ripped converse surrounded by some middle-aged businesses people and the odd super old person coated in heavy duty makeup to make them look young. She had been the only kid in the lounge and the person at the check in desk who she had automatically named the bouncer had a very stern upper lip and had said very snootily that she wasn't allowed up in the lounge because it was first class only. She had then presented her first class ticket and then been promptly told off by Sam Jones because she also presented her middle finger in his direction as well.

"We are trying to stay inconspicuous Sophie, it would help if you didn't cause a scene." Sam had whispered under his breath as he lead her to the quietest part of the lounge. Sophie had then spent the better part of two hours eating from the buffet, watching movies and reading her briefing. Now they were on the plane and whilst Sam Jones was busy rattling of emails to various different members of the mission committee, Sophie had read the first of the hundred pages of her briefing that was supposed to have read already. Sam leaned over and pulled out her headphone jack and whispered to her that she had better have got that briefing memorized by the time that she met the agents who she would be staying with or Sam would put her on a plane back to England before she could say the words "Missed Educational Assessment." Sophie reluctantly started reading her briefing and after the first boring couple of pages about the war on drugs it actually became quite interesting. By the time the pilot was announcing their descent into Dallas, Sophie had memorized not only her alter ego Sophie Hayes but everything they already knew about AHG as well as the people she was going to attempt to befriend.

"So I was expelled from Chestomere Prep School for persistent disobedience and now have to live with my parents: Tony and Ziva Hayes." Sophie checked with Sam as she studied the mission briefing. "My father is a film professor. How am I supposed to infiltrate a gang with a father who is a film professor?" Sophie exclaimed as she read the mission briefing. "My Mum, or Mom as I should probably say, is a languages teacher at one of the high schools but not the one I am going to. Ohhh, she speaks Hebrew too." Sophie commented as she read the next few lines.

"Yep, the NCIS agents who you will be staying with are in a relationship. They are lovely people Sophie, we really couldn't have got a more believable pair. Ziva is Israeli-American so you can probably get away with your slight Israeli accent that you have picked up after your last mission but your British accent is one that we will have to say you have because of your years in the UK. Also, if anyone asks, the money to pay for your education came from old family money." Sam added as the seatbelt sign above their head switched on. "Once we get through customs, we are looking for an Agent Timothy McGee who is the technical brains of this mission. We have all of our state of the art Unit J equipment but he and I will be spending quite a lot of time monitoring the technical side of things." Sophie nodded at this last bit of information as the plane touched down on the ground of Dallas International Airport.


	9. Chapter 9

Split Across the Continents Part 9

McGee had been standing in the arrivals hall for just over half an hour when he caught sight of Sam Jones and what looked like a fairly small ten year old coming down the escalator to meet him. Sam looked the same as he had done over the MTAC feed with his balding head and faded jeans but this time he was met with a tired smile. Sam was taller in person than he had appeared in MTAC and despite the faded jeans, he clearly was someone who knew a lot about undercover work. McGee wasn't so sure he could say the same for the ten year old next to him. The first thing McGee noticed was how small she seemed to be for her age but her curly hair seemed to add an inch or two to her height. The girl's hair appeared to be a dark brown, not unlike Ziva's he noted. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of bright pink (and McGee was sure they were fake) Reybans and she carried a large duffel bag over her shoulder.

"Had a good flight?"McGee asked them as he lead the way through the arrivals hall towards the parkade.

"Not bad." Sam started before the girl interrupted him.

"It was great. The guy at the first class business lounge was a bit snooty but he let me in, then on the plane, there was about fifty films that I had missed seeing so really it was a difficult choice to make between Fantastic Beasts or the new Star Wars movie. I was tempted to go with the new Star Wars movie but Benjamin said that Fantastic Beasts was…" the girl continued.

"By the way, Tim," Sam started motioning towards the girl, "this is Sophie." McGee shook hands with Sophie opened her mouth to continue on about the flight when Sam interrupted her.

"You can tell Tim about the difficult decision you had to make later but just before we go, I wouldn't mind using the bathroom." Sam motioned towards the mens room as Sophie disappeared into the ladies. McGee followed Sam into the men's room feeling that he should probably go too.

"Sophie can be quite chatty." Sam said in undertone to McGee. "By the time we get to your Agent Gibbs's she will probably not only have gone into some detail of the films she was watching but talk about everything and anything under the sun." McGee laughed at that remembering the hours spent on stakeout with Tony who could also discuss films until the day he died. Everyone had had a good laugh at him reprising his role as a film professor.

"She will probably get along really well with Tony then. He too, loves films." McGee added as he washed his hands and the headed outside to catch up with Sophie. As they strolled into the chilly January air, Sophie pulled her hoodie around herself as she surveyed the parking lot. McGee clicked the keys and Sophie marched towards the car in such a way that McGee was strongly reminded of Ziva when she was on a mission to get somewhere. Really, they couldn't have picked a better agent to play Tony and Ziva's pretend daughter, McGee thought to himself as he crossed around to get into the drivers seat.

Tony, Ziva, and Gibbs were all waiting in Gibb's basement for McGee to get back with Sam and Sophie. They would be staying here for the next few days before the mission started properly as there had been a backlog in getting a house for Tony, Ziva, and Sophie to move into. Both had agreed that staying in one of their two apartments was too risky and it was safer to stay all together. Ziva stood with some sand paper sanding down the current boat residing in Gibb's basement. They had all long since stopped asking how he got the boat out.

"How are you handling everything, Ziver?" Gibbs questioned her as he started sanding alongside her.

"Fine. I am fine Gibbs." Ziva said stretching a smile over her face. Gibbs gave her a knowing look. "I will be. I have accepted that my Sophie isn't coming back and that this one, the one who is staying with us, is not going to be her and I should not expect her to be. I am also trying to reconcile myself with the idea of sending a child in undercover. I know that she has been trained as well as any adult but still. A ten year old…"

"It will be okay Ziva." Tony piped up from his corner and Ziva shot him a smile and continued sanding.

"Don't try to replace her, Ziva. God knows I have tried to do that with Shannon and Kelly. Remember her, don't replace her." Gibbs imparted his words of wisdom before going upstairs presumably to find some more bourbon.

"I don't think I ever could forget her." Ziva smiled at Tony.

"Neither." Tony murmured back as he pulled Ziva in for a kiss. Ziva leant into the kiss and revelled in the feeling of being so loved just until she heard the distinctive sound of the car pulling up outside.

"Time to go meet her." Ziva smiled as she lead the way upstairs.

Sophie had decided that she liked Agent Gibbs just from walking inside the front door. With the TV that looked older than she was and a couch that had seen better days, Sophie appreciated his minimalist look. Sophie dumped her duffel bag on the floor and went to have a look around to see if she could find any other ancient relics inside this Agent Gibbs's house. Just as she was leaving, Sam turned to Gibbs and muttered:

"She has just gone to case the joint, sorry about her not asking first. She'll be back in a minute." As the tip of Sophie's ponytail disappeared around the upstairs staircase, Sam noticed the two other agents, Tony and Ziva, emerge from the basement. Even Sam did a double take. He had seen pictures of them when he was looking to fit the right agent in but he wasn't aware of how closely Sophie resembled them. She looked scarily like them, he thought as he watched Ziva look around for Sophie.

"Loving the minimalist look, Agent Gibbs." Sophie said as she came down the stair case. "I'm Sophie." She said as she caught sight of Tony and Ziva looking around for her. Tony and Ziva just stared at her. "Have you never seen a ten year old before?" She questioned as they continued to stare. Tony was the first to recover and offered to shake her hand which Sophie took.

"You just weren't exactly what we were expecting." Tony said carefully as Sophie smiled awkwardly.

"S'not so bad. On my last mission, the guy damn near refused to work with me. Caused a whole load of problems…" She trailed off as she caught Ziva's eye. "Is she okay?" Sophie asked Tony indicating Ziva's slightly bug-eyed expression.

"Yeah, she's fine." Tony replied as he nudged Ziva which seemed to bring Ziva out of her trance. She shook her head and excused herself to go to the bathroom. Sophie ignored this in favour of asking Gibb's where she was going to sleep.

"Upstairs, first door on the left." Gibbs responded to her question as Sam pondered this Agent Ziva's strange response. Sam watched as Sophie heaved her duffel bag up the staircase presumably to the room that Gibb's had described.

"What was that about? She was told that Sophie was a ten year old, right?" Sam demanded as saw the exchange of glances between Gibbs and Tony.

"Yes. She was just taken off guard, that's all. I guess it didn't really hit her until now that we were really doing this." Tony added as Ziva came back from the bathroom looking more like herself.

"I will go check on Sophie. We are just going to go through some last minute details about the mission." Sam said, sensing the need for the agents to be on their own. He turned and continued up the sparse staircase that led up to Sophie's room.

"Well, she looks the part." Tony said breaking the awkwardness that had fallen upon the three agents. He caught Ziva's eye and they both burst out laughing. For some unknown reason to them both, they both were laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. Ziva was laughing so hard that she had to grab the bannister for support whilst Tony had fallen onto the couch whilst Gibb's just stared between the two of them bewildered at this sudden turn of events. He had been expecting tears but not this hysterical laughter. He shook his head and went down to the basement to continue working on the boat.

"What the hell are we going to do with her?" Tony asked once he was fully able to control his laughter.

"Well, I suppose she has a job to do and we just help her with it as much as possible. In the mean time, I think we should probably try to get to know her, as you know, we are supposed to be her parents." Ziva said as the seriousness in her voice returned.

"Yeah, we should probably not stare at her like she has three heads though." Tony said as he pulled himself to his feet and indicated for them to go upstairs.

"After you…' He said as they started the journey up to Sophie's room.


	10. Chapter 10

"My name is Sophie Hayes. I am ten years old and my birthday is on the 23rd May. I attended Chestomere Prep School for two years before I was expelled for persistent disobedience. My parents are Tony and Ziva Hayes. My father is a professor of film and my mother is a languages teacher." Sophie recited to Sam as she settled on the small twin bed. The room was the only brightly lit one in the house, painted a sunny yellow and sporting a faded picture of a ballerina. It looked like it had once been a child's room but that nobody had stayed in it for quite some time. The large window opened to show a picture of the back yard with an ancient old swing still hanging from a dilapidated old tree.

"What accent are you using?" Sam asked her.

"My normal British one." Sophie replied.

"Why?"

"Because it's hard to keep an accent going for a long period of time especially if you're stressed." Sam smiled at Sophie's response.

"No, you misunderstood. Why do you have an accent that is different to your parents?" He pressed again.

"Because, before we moved to Washington DC, we all lived in Britain together. Because I was so young, I picked up the accent but my parents didn't. My father was doing some research into some classical movies that were done by British film makers." Sophie added as an afterthought. "I also speak Hebrew, which I actually do because my mother is Israeli." She continued as she saw Tony and Ziva open the door into her room. Remembering the awkwardness from earlier she turned away from them. She wasn't usually so uncomfortable with new people but these guys set her on edge.

"I am sorry about earlier. You look the exact picture of somebody who I used to know." Sophie could hear the Israeli undertones to her voice that she had spent the past few months listening to.

"It's okay. Have you read the mission briefing yet?" Sophie asked indicating the leaflet of information on the bed.

"Yes. You are going to be infiltrating AHG through the use of the school network, yes?" Ziva asked.

"Uh huh. They like using kids for the same reason that Unit J does. Nobody suspects us. I know that I start school in two weeks time and I will be attending James Pike Middle School aka JPMS which shares a campus with James Pike High School, or JPHS, which has already been identified as the hotbed of drug activity. According to Sara King's testimony, she was offered the chance to make money through the mentoring program they have there. Since Sara won't be at JPMS anymore, I have been paired with her old mentor: Kendra Ottomere. She has been suspended for drug possession once in her Sophomore year but hasn't since. Why do you call your Year 11 students sophomores? It's such a stupid name." Sophie muttered. "I will be going into Grade 6 which is apparently the prime age for picking up couriers." She added as she watched Ziva staring at her. It really was unnerving how much she was staring at her. Sophie felt like she was staring right into her soul and resisted the urge to shift away from them.

"Good job, Sophie. I will leave you guys to get to know each other a bit." Sam said as he stood up, stretched, and left the room. Sophie almost called out for him to stop before mentally berating herself for doing so. She was ten years old, a fully fledged agent and didn't need someone to hold her hand just because somebody's stare was unnerving. That was talk of a tiny junior agent who hadn't passed training. She had put up with far worse than a stare before no matter how unnerving this stare was. Tony was the first to break the silence that had fallen on the room by asking her a few more questions about her undercover identity. Sophie answered them as best she could before she was caught off guard.

"How much of this is made up and how much of this is really you? Is your name really Sophie?" Tony suddenly asked her. Sophie was torn in her answer; on the one hand, undercover agents are supposed to keep of much of their identities secret so as to prevent confusion later on but at the same time, minor details are kept the same so as to make it more believable.

"My name really is Sophie." Sophie decided to answer the easy question first. "They try to keep details like that the same because it prevents confusion. What about you?"

"My name really is Tony and but Ziva's name really is Terminator but she doesn't want anyone to know that." Tony added as Sophie laughed.

"My name really is Ziva no matter what Tony will try to tell you." Ziva added smiling for the first time that sophie had seen. Sophie decided then that Ziva wasn't as unnerving as she seemed.

"In my mission briefing, it says that you speak Hebrew?" Sophie asked Ziva addressing her directly for the first time since she introduced herself.

"Yes. Do you?" Ziva asked her in Hebrew which made Sophie flash back a few months to her previous mission where she had barely spoken English at all. It was a nice reminder. Sophie remembered something Elaine had told her a few years ago about her grandfather being Israeli and wondered if she really had spoken Hebrew when she was a little girl.

"Yes. I was on a mission in Israel a few months ago and I barely spoke any English at all." Sophie replied in Hebrew. Tony just stared between the two of them obviously completely lost. "I guess that Tony doesn't speak any Hebrew at all." She nodded towards Tony's confused expression.

"He knows a few phrases but his understanding is next to nothing." Ziva replied relishing in using her native language for the first time in a few years.

"Can we go back to English now?" Tony interrupted their little conversation. "Kind of irritating not being able to understand a word you are saying. Anyways, I think I can smell steak cooking downstairs." Sophie automatically sniffed at this and was fairly sure that he was right. Tony led the way downstairs to where Gibbs was cooking his famous steak on the open fire whilst an old western movie played on the TV. McGee, who had picked them up from the airport was on the phone talking quickly to someone.

"Who's he talking to?" Sophie asked Ziva whilst Tony rolled his eyes as the Hebrew came out again.

"Delilah, his fiancé to be if he ever gets round to buying a ring." Ziva replied opting to switch back to English for Tony's benefit. Sophie picked that moment to look at Ziva's hands. No wedding band or ring. Tony wasn't wearing one either and the thought of that made Sophie feel inexplicably sad for a moment. It was stupid, but just for a moment, she had thought that she might be coming into a normal family with married parents and just for a moment, she might be able to live the white picket fence dream. Once again she mentally shook herself, she had a great life at Unit J and this whole thing was pretend anyway so why should her fake parents be really married? It wouldn't really change anything.

"Are you and Tony married in real life too?" Sophie couldn't stop herself from asking as she settled on the couch next to Ziva.

"It's a bit complicated." Ziva said quietly as she accepted the steak that Gibbs offered her.

"Are you divorced then?" She questioned again. McGee heard this and chuckled.

"Feels like it sometimes, Sophie." McGee interjected into their conversation.

"No. We are a married couple for the purposes of this mission but real life is a heck of a lot more complicated than that. Are we a couple though? I would say so yes." Ziva answered Sophie's question.

"You don't sound sure." Sophie commented as she tucked into her steak. It really was very good, cooked just to perfection. She looked around and saw that the other agents were frozen, listening hard in on their conversation.

"We are a couple Sophie." Tony said in such a way that Sophie realized that he had closed that topic. She chewed down a couple more bites wondering about their weird reaction to her question. Surely it was simple: you either were a couple or you were not. She looked between them again. Tony had his arm round the back of Ziva as they sat close together on the couch. She, herself, was sitting next to Ziva, squished in-between her and the edge of the couch. Gibbs was in an armchair opposite them with McGee standing up near the door still on the phone to his girlfriend. Sam had dragged a chair from the kitchen into the living room and was sitting with his laptop balanced on his knees. The conversation soon resumed to questions pertaining to the mission which Sophie allowed to wash over her head. She knew the document back to front and was exhausted. She checked her watch which told her it was almost three in the morning back home. She wondered whether anyone would mind if she had a shower and went to bed. She wasn't normally one to ditch out on the conversation but the jet lag combined with Gibbs's steak was enough for her to want to fall into bed.

Gibbs, noticing Sophie's quite prominent yawn, quietly informed her of where the bathroom was and allowed her to excuse herself to go to bed. Sam stayed up for a further half an hour going over mission documents when he decided to call it a day and go to bed. McGee left soon after claiming that he needed to go and see Delilah if he stood any chance of being in a relationship the next morning. Tony, Ziva, and Gibbs were soon the only ones left awake in the otherwise silent house.

"Well, she is quite something, boss." Tony said to Gibbs. "Smart and understood my movie references so I think we will get along just fine."

"And you, Ziva?" Gibbs asked looking at Ziva's thoughtful face.

"She doesn't exactly hold back on the questions." Ziva responded quietly looking at the floor.

"Yeah Ziva, what exactly was that all about earlier about us not being a couple in real life? I was pretty sure we had made that leap by now." Tony asked trying to keep the indignation out of his voice.

"We are but not in the way that Sophie was asking about. She wanted to know if we were married and the answer to that is no. I wasn't going to tell a ten year old who I have just met the reason why so I picked the least complicated but honest way out." Ziva defended herself.

"I don't think that was what she was really asking Ziva. She wanted to know if we were together which we are, aren't we?" Tony asked her, the indigence showing on his face.

"Yes we are and I told Sophie that." Ziva reminded him, feeling pleased with herself for not yelling.

"If you too are planning on staying the night then bedrooms are upstairs, I will be in the basement." Gibbs said as he left them to it.

"We should probably go to bed." Ziva said to Tony. He nodded and they both went upstairs stepping lightly so as not to disturb the sleeping houseguests. As Tony headed into their shared room in Gibb's house, Ziva peeped into where Sophie was sleeping. Her body was tucked in under the sheets keeping her warm in winter, but her sleeping face on the pillow was what stood out the most. She looked so peaceful with her hair splayed outwards with her eyes closed and mouth open slightly. Ziva stayed for a minute just watching. Maybe this was what her own daughter would have been like if only she could have been around to see it.


	11. Chapter 11

The Hayes' house was in a fairly seedy part of town with two floors and a small back yard. Sophie's room for the mission was fairly small but comfortable with a twin bed, small desk and a dresser. It didn't matter much to her as she didn't really intend to stay in it for long. They had all moved in the previous day with the intent for Sophie to start school the next day. Tony and Ziva were sitting at the kitchen table sipping on mugs of either tea or coffee feeling slightly on edge. Sophie had been in the house about ten minutes before she had spotted some of the neighbourhood kids hanging out in a dilapidated old playground and she had figured it would be best if she went and showed her face. Ziva had been about to stop her when she remembered that Sophie's primary goal was to get involved in the gang as opposed to keeping her away from it.

The kids hanging out in the playground were made up of all ages and colours with the unifying thing between them being the extreme boredom. Sophie knew that there was a Youth Centre a few blocks away but she also knew that any place specifically designed for kids is the last place they would pick to go to. The oldest kid there was a tall guy who had his arm around a scantily dressed girl and they were sharing a cigarette. A couple of of other kids were intent on setting fire to a trash can whilst the youngest kids including a few Sophie's age were standing awkwardly around unsure of where they were supposed to go. Sophie sidled up to one of the kids who looked a little lost, a skinny girl with big hair and a nervous smile.

"Hi, I just moved in down the street. Is there anything good going on round here?" Sophie started watching the girl.

"Not much. Welcome to the world's most boring shithole." The girl muttered but she didn't sound unwelcoming. She pulled out her cellphone and started tapping out a text.

"I'm Sophie." Sophie added.

"Kendra."

"Have you lived around here for long?" Sophie tried to keep the conversation casual.

"All my life. Where'd the accent come from?" Kendra asked showing the smallest interest in keeping up the conversation.

"Britain. Lived there until recently. Got kicked out my old school." This perked up Kendra's interest. She looked up from her cell phone, peering at Sophie.

"What for?"

"Messing around too much, ditching school, that sort of thing." Sophie replied.

"Same here. School's boring. You know something, Sophie, if you get to school tomorrow and don't feel like sticking around, me and some others are gonna go to the mall, get some clothes, you know?" Kendra added, her tone suddenly turning conspicuous.

"Is this the sort of trip where I'm not going to need money?" Sophie caught on quickly smiling at Kendra.

"Not if you don't feel like paying." Kendra smiled at her, seeming warm for the first time since they met.

At that moment, there was a massive tire squeal and a flashy convertible screeched to a stop next to the teenagers. In the driver's seat there was a ripped, six foot six dude with a shaved head pumping the gas whilst head banging along to a pop song that was blaring out of the speakers. Next to him was a big chested girl who was also singing along with her voice muted by the speakers. In the back there was another couple, heartily making out. Some of the bigger guys piled onto the hood, dragging a few of the other kids in with them.

"Finally something interesting going on here." Kendra said as she smirked at Sophie. Kendra and Sophie were quite a bit younger than the other teenagers so made no move to pile into the car with the others.

"Gonna join us Kendra?" An older boy yelled at her.

"No thanks Micky. Don't want to get in on your foursome with the other guys." Kendra yelled back as the others all jeered at her burn.

"Roasted by the kid sister." One of them yelled as he punched who Sophie assumed was Micky on the shoulder. Micky punched him back and made a move to go hit his sister when someone yelled from the end of the road.

"Coppers! Coppers!" The scramble in the car was massive as the guy in the driver's seat slammed on the gas and the car screeched away taking the teenagers with it. Kendra flicked the bird before starting to run. Sophie chased after her as the sirens got closer. Kendra and Sophie ducked down a back alley that led towards the youth centre. They both slowed to a walk as Kendra fought to catch her breath. Sophie's extensive training meant that the two hundred feet that they had run was not enough to wind her but clearly this short distance was enough to have Kendra fighting for breath.

"If any of the coppers come round here, we were both in the Youth Centre. They nick anyone round here." Kendra muttered to Sophie as they went into the Youth Centre. It had opened up just a few months ago but it was already covered in graffiti with the pool tables ripped. A couple of eight-year-olds were playing on the X-Box with a half hearted supervisor reading a romance novel in the corner. Kendra grabbed a pool cue before throwing another one at Sophie. Everyone else at the playground seemed to have had the same idea of reconvening at the Youth Centre. As it was only seven in the evening, it was too early to go home but nobody fancied being arrested either. There was an unspoken agreement that when the cops came knocking everyone would claim that they were at the Youth Centre the whole time and every other kid would back them up.

"How long till the cops get here?" Sophie asked feeling her cellphone vibrate in her pocket. Kendra shrugged before hitting one of the balls with her pool cue.

"Depends if they can catch the guys in the car. Kyle, the driver, was high as a kite so it should be a fairly quick chase. Kind of stupid for them to pinch a judge's car though." Kendra muttered. "It's all flash and there was noway that they could strip it down fast enough to sell so that was all for show. My Mom is gonna be super mad if Micky was caught." Sophie listened to all this nodding along. Kendra seemed to be implying that they regularly stole cars for parts but there was nothing in the briefing that had mentioned that.

"They get cars for parts?" Sophie asked quietly.

"Yeah. My brother works for some garage and he says that parts are worth far more than the full car. Never seen Micky do it but doesn't surprise me if he is selling stuff on the side." Kendra said as Sophie played her shot. The white ball smacked into two balls causing them to both roll into the end pocket. Sophie punched the air in victory and offered her cue to Kendra.

"Cops have just walked in." Sophie added as she handed the cue over. Sophie felt her phone buzz again and discreetly pulled it out of her pocket. Five missed calls from Ziva and twice as many texts. She scrolled through picking up the general message of picking up her phone as well as wanting to know where she was. Sophie tapped out a message detailing her location and telling her not to worry. Sophie rolled her eyes at the immediate reply she got telling her to come home. Sophie rolled her eyes at this. She had made friends and not been arrested on the first day. This should be counted as a win. Sophie replied asking if it was supper, their code for asking if it was an emergency. The reply was immediate but that it wasn't an emergency. Sophie pocketed the phone, managing not to reply sarcastically but nonetheless angry at Ziva. The cops were going round asking the kids if they knew anyone in the car. Sophie and Kendra were both overlooked in their rounds, probably they assumed that they were too young. Sophie and Kendra played a few more rounds of pool whilst the police did their round.

"Okay kids, time to head home. Best not show your faces outside tonight." The middle-aged cop yelled to the crowd at the end of the interrogation. There was some grumbling as the kids gradually began to drift towards the door.

"This is boring anyway."

"Nothing exciting happens here anyway."

"Wanna hit my place?" The conversations of the older kids drifted away as Sophie and Kendra left the building. They walked together back down the alley they had come from. Both of them were shivering in just their hoodies. Sophie wished she had brought her coat.

"See you tomorrow at school?" Kendra confirmed as she turned to head down a different street.

"Yeah, I should probably make sure my Mom's head doesn't explode." Sophie smiled and both girls rolled their eyes.

"My Mom doesn't care what Micky does but if I arrive late, she goes nuts." Kendra laughed. Sophie watched as Kendra walked down the most run down street of the neighbourhood.

Sophie continued on for a few blocks putting off answering the call from Ziva. What was her problem? Sophie was already annoyed at Ziva's inability to leave her alone for five minutes. She stomped up the drive hugging her hoodie around herself but nonetheless pleased at her progress. She had already made a friend who knew quite a lot of what was going on. She unlocked the door to the house and immediately appreciated the warmth. She hoped she could sneak upstairs before facing Ziva. She had kind of ditched them earlier without much warning but then mission first. Sophie was unlucky in her attempt as Ziva called her into the kitchen. Sophie sauntered into the kitchen catching sight of Gibbs, Sam, Tony, and Ziva. Sophie mentally cheered at this, she could just give a mission progress report and then go shower.

"How did it go?" Sam was the first one to ask her.

"Great. I have made friends with Kendra. From what I gathered, her brother works for a dodgy garage that sells on spare parts for cars. She mentioned that a couple of guys were drug users and she had a fairly good knowledge of what to do if the cops came knocking showing me that she had dealt with cops before. We are meeting up at school tomorrow." Sophie reported leaving out the detail where she was skipping school. Unit J agents are allowed to break the law to keep their cover but Sophie didn't particularly want to hand over her stolen goods that came with being allowed to break the law. She also remembered in that moment that most of this room were cops normally.

"That's great work, Sophie." Sam said tapping the new information into his laptop. "Did you catch the name of the brother?"

"Kendra said that his name was Micky but I am guessing that it's a nickname." Sophie replied her stomach rumbling with hunger. Maybe Tony and Ziva had made some food… Sophie was startled by Ziva sudden exclamation which Sophie could tell she had been waiting to make.

"Why didn't you answer your phone?" Ziva exploded. Sophie had been expecting this but still felt indignant. Did she not understand the concept of undercover work?

"If you are trying to get in with the type of people who deal drugs, I can't just answer the phone to a worried parent every time you call? How pathetic does that make me look?" Sophie snapped back.

"All we heard was the police sirens and tire screeching and we didn't know if there had been a hit and run! We didn't know if you were hurt!" Ziva continued as if she hadn't heard her. Tony touched her arm as if trying to calm down. Sophie just stared open mouthed at her before she grabbed a bag of chips and went upstairs trying to control her anger. She slumped on the bed stuffing a few chips into her mouth in one go. Salt and Vinegar flavoured weren't her favourite but was enough to control her anger. Between each mouthful of chips, Sophie muttered about not being able to answer the phone whilst she was undercover. She angrily thought of how her last mission had allowed her to be completely solo, often not talking to a mission controller for weeks whilst gathering intel. She had managed to save hundreds of lives when she had discovered the bomb plot yet here she was getting yelled at for being in a rough neighbourhood for a few hours.

Downstairs, everyone was still reeling at Ziva's outburst. Ziva had calmed herself down and even felt a little ashamed. Eventually Sam spoke up.

"Ziva, Sophie is right. This was just a showing your face type of interaction. There will be periods of time where she won't be answering her phone or being able to be in contact with anyone. If you have a problem with that, then we need to address this now." Sam said quietly. He had been just as shocked as Sophie as her outburst. "Sophie has a lot of experience working alone and probably is not appreciating you underestimating her. I will go talk to her." Sam added as he made his way over to the staircase.

"Get it together, both of you or this mission will fall apart. Now is not the time to mourn the loss of your daughter or be scared for Sophie. She has the training to keep herself safe. Make up with her tonight." Gibbs commanded before leaving the house. Ziva sank into the chair trying to comprehend what she had just done. When she hadn't been able to contact Sophie, she had flashed back to the months of radio silence when she first lost her daughter. That fear had manifested itself and all she could feel was the terror of being in the dark.

"Are you okay?" Tony settled beside her.

"I am tired of feeling scared. Sophie isn't even mine but all I could think was how scared I was when I heard the sirens and to know that it's just going to get worse…" Ziva trailed off fighting to control her breathing.

"She has more training than us in dealing with this. You should probably go talk to her about this." Tony added. "Employ our own rule of never going to bed angry with each other." Ziva nodded feeling confident that she wasn't going to start crying.

Sam had talked to Sophie saying that she had done good work but to try to manage a text every so often confirming her whereabouts. Sophie had since calmed down and wanted to go take a shower looking forward to the warm water on her otherwise cold body when she heard the knock on her door. Ziva walked into the tiny room and settled next to her on her bed. Sophie stared at the ceiling not really in the mood to talk to them.

"Gibbs has a set of rules, one of which is to never apologize. He says it's a sign of weakness. I am going to make an exception to the rule here." Ziva started her voice even. "I'm sorry, Sophie. I know you were just doing your job and I overreacted to you being gone for so long." Sophie looked at her for a while. She had never before had an adult apologize to her and mean it.

"It's okay." Sophie said in a small voice smiling to show she meant it. Sophie was then completely taken off guard when Ziva pulled her into a hug. As a Unit J agent, she didn't have lots of people hugging her. The carers when she was a junior agent had hugged her but in recent years, she could count on one hand the hugs she had had. Ziva just pulled her in and wrapped her arms around herald Sophie nearly froze up. Her head was resting just below her shoulder with the rest of her body being held against Ziva's. It felt weird but nice and she didn't feel as cold anymore. Ziva felt everything in her settle for a bit and the fear was for the moment muted in how calm she felt. Sophie had frozen for a second and Ziva remembered that as an undercover agent, Sophie didn't have a family back in the UK so she probably wasn't hugged that much. The thought of the young girl currently sitting in her lap not being hugged was enough for Ziva to hold her more tightly. She watched as Tony poked his head round the door.

"Everything okay?" He had mouthed. Ziva nodded in response before shifting Sophie into a slightly more comfortable position and holding her tightly for as long as she could get away with.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Please don't go shoplifting!

Sophie's first day at James Pike Middle School started with double math. She had been placed in the same class as Kendra who had spent the majority of the class talking to her group of friends, texting and talking back to the teacher. Unlike Unit J's strict educational scheme where you got mass punishment laps for not handing in homework on time, the teachers at JPMS had about as much control over their classes as the weatherman does over a typhoon. People were throwing paper around as well as swearing at the teacher. Kendra was far from being alone in talking back with a group of boys swearing at her. Sophie felt bad for her but in the end, acting as the teacher's pet was going to be worse than useless. By lunch, Sophie was ready to leave.

"I'm bored. Fancy going to the mall?" Kendra asked her. The other girl in their group shook her head.

"My Mom is gonna lose her shit at me if I skip again." She muttered apologetically. "Birthday presents hang in the balance." Kendra nodded sympathetically.

"My Mom always grounds me but has no way to stop me going out. Sophie, you game for the mall?" Kendra turned to Sophie as the other girl headed to the cafeteria for lunch.

"Always. That was possibly the most pointless morning of school I have ever been to." Sophie added as they wandered out of the school.

"That was fairly mild. Usually the teacher leaves crying." Kendra added.

The mall near James Pike Middle School was one of the massive three storey malls that has massive named brands and was a popular place for the high school students to head to on their lunch break. Kendra and Sophie stood out a little as they were so much younger than the rest of the teenagers there but nobody gave them a second look. They were both shoved around a bit as they got in line for burgers.

"Only part of the mall which you can't nab from." Kendra said wistfully as she opened up her wallet. Sophie caught sight of a few fifties and twenties floating around in her wallet.

"Not that you need to." Sophie pointed out looking at her wallet. "Parents must be generous."

"All this? Nah, parents didn't give me this." Kendra answered as she paid for their burgers. Sophie watched as she poured about ten packets of ketchup all over her burger leaving Sophie feeling slightly sick. She had always hated ketchup.

"Wish I could pay you back but my parents have stopped my allowance since I ran away from my last school." Sophie said remembering a detail of her cover story.

"Money is all over the place if you know where to look. I can set you up with someone if you're short of money." Kendra said taking a huge bite out of her burger. Sophie tried not to look too excited at this. She knew what Kendra did but getting her to admit it was the hard part of any confession.

"I could do with some extra bucks." Sophie said through a mouthful of burger.

"There is this lady who likes us to do deliveries. You put on a girl scout uniform and go around with one packet of cookies and one of her delivery. She is looking for some new bodies but needs to make sure you ain't scared of anything." Kendra said keeping her voice down in the crowded mall.

"I have been expelled from my last school and ditched to go with you. I'm not scared of anything." Sophie said trying not to sound to eager.

"What's your cell number? Needs to be one that your Mom and Dad don't check." Kendra asked as they finished off their burgers. Sophie gave her her cell number as they wandered towards some of the clothing stores. Kendra seemed to be looking for a particular store and stopped once they reached Forever 21. The store was fairly busy for a week day with a bunch of the local teens browsing through the clothes and long line ups at each counter. Kendra ducked in with Sophie on her heels.

"Pick out something you like but nothing too fancy and meet me in the changing rooms in ten minutes." Kendra instructed. "Don't take too much and look confident when you do." Sophie knew all this already and could easily predict what they were about to do. The old clothing swap was a classic method of getting clothes. Sophie went around picking out her favourite tops and went to meet Kendra. Together they ducked into the changing rooms with minimal glances from the store clerk. Kendra stripped off her outer layer of clothes and then got a small magnet out of her backpack. Sophie took the magnet and pressed it into the electronic tags on the clothes. The tags popped of the clothes with ease and Sophie stuffed them under some trash in the wastepaper basket. Meanwhile, Kendra pulled the stolen top over the top of her head and hid it with her sweater from earlier, shoving her previous top into her backpack. Sophie followed suit.

"The good thing about this store is that you just leave the clothes you don't want in the changing rooms and they pick it up later. Super easy." Kendra said in undertone as they finished getting dressed. They both then slipped out for the changing room giggling so that any passer by would assume them to just be school kids. They slipped out of the store in their stolen garments smiling the whole time.

"Such a rush." Kendra said as they both walked away towards the edge of the mall. Sophie knew from training that walking instead of running helped to prevent suspicion and they both made it out the mall with bright smiles and no followers. Sophie and Kendra wandered towards the edge of the mall where there was a small park. As the lunch hour was ending, students were wandering back towards school. Sophie and Kendra wandered towards some of the trees that afforded some cover. DC was still freezing around this time of year and Sophie was glad she had remembered her coat as they wandered across the frosty ground.

"You handled that better than I thought." Kendra observed. "Claire, the girl from earlier, freaks out whenever we go as she thinks we are going to get caught every time." Sophie rolled her eyes at this.

"Like I said, expulsion from schools tends to stop you freaking out about stuff." Sophie muttered. Just then, Kendra's phone started to ring.

"Hey Linda, yeah, yeah, 48th, pick up in ten minutes?" Kendra said into the phone as Sophie struggled to follow along. "Got another body here. Yeah, she's cool. Not gonna blab. Yeah, I will take responsibility if she does." Kendra hung up the phone and gave Sophie the thumbs up. "Linda says she wants to meet you sometime during the week but not today. Sorry for ditching you but I've got this delivery." She said apologetically as they wandered back towards the suburbia. Sophie waved her off and started to make her way back towards her own house before realizing that she was supposed to be at school. As far as mission progress, this was fantastic but she still wasn't sure about Tony and Ziva's reaction especially if she wandered home in stolen clothes. Instead she ducked back into the mall and changed out of her stolen shirt, placing it back into her backpack underneath her binders. She vaguely remembered seeing an ice cream place in the food court and figured that that would be a nice place to spend part of the afternoon before heading home. Unlike earlier, the food court was fairly quiet and as a lone ten year old, she stood out. The lady behind the counter gave her an odd look but didn't say anything as she ordered a chocolate and strawberry flavoured ice cream. As she turned around she became nose to nose with Ziva.

"What are you doing here?" Ziva hissed as she grabbed Sophie's arm and dragged her towards a secluded table.

"I was with Kendra until she left." Sophie replied half tempted to break Ziva's fingers but opting instead to shake them off. "She offered to set me up with Linda, her dealer. This is good remember?" Sophie said quietly trying to remember if her phone had been on today.

"Why aren't you in school?" Ziva continued angrily.

"As I said, I was with Kendra." Sophie muttered. "Doing my job. You don't make friends with bad guys by acting as the good girl." Ziva had to admit, she did have a point but she couldn't shake the feeling of wanting to keep Sophie out of harms way. She also didn't want to admit that she was wrong for getting angry. Sophie clearly wasn't going to.

"Okay. What has Linda asked you to do?" Ziva said keeping her voice calmer.

"Wants to meet me later in the week. I expect it will be deliveries and such like." Sophie said realizing that Ziva appeared to be calmer. "Have you heard anything different over chatter?" She asked.

"Not here. I will tell you later. Now for the purposes of maintaining the appearance of being angry with you for skipping school, I will probably drag you out of here. We will talk more at home." Ziva said under her breath in Hebrew. Sophie nodded disappointed that she wasn't going to be able to eat her ice cream and enjoy her afternoon off. Ziva then grabbed her arm and marched her out of the food court. If Sophie hadn't known that she was acting, she would have been a little scared if the look on Ziva's face was anything to go by.


	13. Chapter 13

As soon as she was allowed, Sophie had disappeared upstairs to her room leaving Tony and Ziva in the kitchen.

"How has she been coping?" Tony asked as he sipped on a lukewarm cup of coffee.

"I keep forgetting that she is supposed to be acting as the bad girl. I caught her in the mall earlier after she had ditched school with this Kendra girl. She made excellent progress but all I could see was the ten year old skipping school." Ziva said as Tony chuckled. "She even called me out on it." Ziva added sounding exasperated as Tony laughed.

"Guess the mother in you took over for a bit, huh?" Tony chuckled.

"Took over was a bit of an understatement. You know what the hardest part of this mission is? Watching the lines in front of me blur out. I don't want her to skip school but as the agent getting in with a gang, she has to." Ziva continued as she poured the kettle of boiling water into a mug.

"We knew it wasn't going to be easy but she is a nice kid. Little snappy at times but overall a good kid. Have you wondered why she is a Unit J agent?" Tony exclaimed. "Like where are her actual parents? Are they in the UK?" Tony continued. Ziva shrugged when a voice came down the staircase.

"Not a clue. I was left at Unit J when I was a little kid." Sophie said as she pulled one of the cookies that Ziva had made off the cooling rack.

"What do you mean "left there"?" Ziva asked confused by her wording.

"Most agents are taken out of the foster care system where nobody will miss them. My grandfather supposedly was one of the first Unit J agents in the Second World War. He was only five when he was put on *Kindertransport from Germany to Britain. His parents, my great grandparents, didn't survive the Holocaust. My grandfather, when he was nine, snuck in under German lines and gathered intel to support the allies. After the war was over, he was twelve and went off to fight for the creation of Israel and as far as I know, has been there ever since. When I was a little kid, he called in favour and I came to Unit J. I don't know what happened to my parents." Sophie finished as she sat down at the table opposite Tony and Ziva. Ziva was staring at her slightly shocked.

"That's quite a story." Tony said staring at Ziva.

"Yeah. It's why I was picked for the mission. I was born in Israel I assume so they picked someone who would fit in best." Sophie said, her mouth full of cookie.

"I didn't realize you were Israeli." Ziva said trying to cover up her shock at Sophie's story.

"I'm not. Brit all the way." Sophie said flashing a ridiculous peace sign.

"Anyway, I worked for Moussad for many years. What is your grandfather's name?" Ziva asked trying to hide her intentions. She knew her father had not been born in Israel and had come there after the war but this was too much of a coincidence. Eli David had not talked much of his life before Israel and Ziva knew precious little of his past. Sophie unhelpfully shrugged.

"Everyone changes their names once they leave. I only know what his Unit J name was." Sophie said as she picked up another cookie.

"Do you know what you are going to change your name to?" Tony asked her.

"Nope. I have always been Sophie." Sophie replied. "These cookies are really good, by the way." She added as Ziva smiled. Sophie picked up the last cookie and took it upstairs with her.

"Well that explains a few things." Tony said stating the obvious. "You looked like you had seen a ghost, Ziva." Tony prompted her.

"My own father lived in Britain before the war. He didn't say much about it but it's enough to make you wonder." Ziva trailed off as she tried to remember her father telling her about his childhood. She had been so young at the time and the memories were faint.

"No use worrying about it, Ziva. The last thing either of us needs is for us to start seeing connections where there are none." Tony said firmly closing the matter. He had been down this rabbit hole with Ziva for the past few years and each time was no easier than the last. Privately, he hoped that there was a major connection but then what would happen at the end of all this? Saying goodbye to Sophie as it were was already going to be painful but they didn't need the added pain of losing her as a daughter as well. Tony squeezed Ziva's hand as she nodded.

Meanwhile, Sophie was in her room texting Kendra. Her delivery had been successful and now Kendra was texting her a picture of the $50 that she had made from that single delivery. Sophie was busy trying to think of a funny reply when her phone starting ringing. Sophie quickly pressed a hidden icon that recorded the conversation as she answered the call.

"Hello. Is this Sophie Hayes?" A calm collected voice said on the other end of the line.

"Yes." Sophie replied keeping her voice stead.

"My name is Linda. I understand that you want to make some extra bucks?" Linda asked her.

"Yeah. Kendra said that you might be able to help me.' Sophie said dropping Kendra's name in to gain her trust.

"The Youth Centre park at 5:00." Was the only thing that Linda said next. Sophie checked her phone and saw that she only had fifteen minutes to get there. She grabbed her empty backpack and sprinted down towards where her bicycle for the mission was stashed. She yelled a quick going out into the house before mounting the bike and riding off. The park was almost ten minutes away but Sophie knew that getting there early was paramount. For all she knew, there could be someone there waiting to arrest her and scoping the place early was vitally important. The ride there was quick and she arrived with a good few minutes to spare. The park was fairly quiet with only a few lone dog walkers and little surveillance from the adjacent Youth Centre. Sophie rode around the outside keeping a lookout for anyone who might stop her. Eventually she caught sight of another dog walker just entering the park. The owner let the dog off the leash who immediately went bounding over to her with the clear intend to knock her off her bike. Sophie swerved her bike as the dog crashed into her, pitching her onto the chilly ground. Sophie had fallen from greater heights during her training and was not hurt from the fall but she hoped that whoever she was meeting would not be thrown off by the crazy dog. The owner of the dog walked over and offered her a hand to help her up. A fifty year old woman in a bright pink puffer jacket helped her up and Sophie tried not to be blinded by the brightness of it.

"Sophie?" The woman asked.

"Yes?" Sophie replied as she dusted herself off.

"My name is Linda and this is Sniffer." Linda said indicating the crazy dog who was sniffing all around Sophie. Sophie absentmindedly began to stroke the dog who immediately licked her hand.

"Did Kendra tell you the drill?" Linda asked her.

"She said that I would do deliveries and get paid for it." Sophie said smiling a little bit trying to play up the whole little girl thing.

"That's it, essentially. Do you know what it inside the deliveries?" Sophie did but didn't want Linda to know that so she shook her head.

"There are various drugs in here. Don't tell your parents. If the cops stop you, then don't say anything. Cry a bit but don't say anything and they will let you go. Spend the money wisely and always say that you don't have any change if the customers ask you." Sophie nodded taking all of this on. "It's good you have a bike. In the backpack here you have a girl scout outfit and a couple of packets of real cookies and the rest of what you are actually delivering is in the bottom. First delivery is a couple of blocks east on 24 Green Avenue. Bring it to the money to the youth centre and you will get a cut of it." With that Linda put Sniffer on his lead and carried on her awkward speed jog. Sophie looked inside the backpack that Linda had left, true to her word, there was a girl scout outfit and a couple of girl scout cookie packets and at the bottom about fifteen brown paper bags presumably containing the drugs. Sophie packed it all back into the bag before grabbing her bike and wheeling it off towards the small public restroom away from prying eyes. As soon as she was inside she pulled the girl scout sweater on over the top of her head which was decorated with a couple of different badges. She zipped her jacket up leaving the collar of the sweater unbuttoned. Kendra had once mentioned that the buyers know it is a dealer as opposed to an actual girl scout through the placement of a small dollar sign on the collar, usually looked over unless you were looking for it. She then threw the backpack over her shoulder and pulled out her phone to text Sam Jones what was going on. Her text was quickly answered with a quick "ok" and Sophie headed out of the restroom.

The thing that shocked Sophie the most was that 24 Green Avenue did not look like a crack den. It was in fact a pretty house surrounded by a few flower beds and if Sophie had stumbled on it earlier, she would have assumed it was the home of a couple in early retirement with not much else to do. She parked her bike next to the gate and rang the doorbell, mentally preparing her speech unless she was mistaken in the place. The woman who came to the door fit the couple in early retirement stereotype but when she noticed the dollar sign on Sophie's collar she smiled almost mischievously.

"New girl I see. Got one of those paper bags?" The woman asked revealing yellow stained teeth and breath reeking of cigarettes and waving dollar bills at her.

"Yes. Sorry I don't have any change." Sophie said as she dug around in the bottom for the paper bag and handed it to her.

"Not to worry. This is the stuff." The lady said as she peered into the bag. The amount that she had given Sophie was extreme for the small amount of coke that there was in the bag but Sophie wasn't one to complain. Kendra had said that the dealer's like Linda take the asking price and the rest is tips. Sophie mentally calculated how much she would be getting from just one delivery and could see why Kendra was so rich. Sophie zipped her backpack back up and checked her phone for her next delivery. Linda was remarkably fast at texting addresses and Sophie soon had done almost five deliveries in the space of just two hours. It was getting dark when she pulled up to the Youth Centre where Kendra had just wheeled up.

"How is being a courier treating you?" Kendra asked as she leant her bike against the wall.

"I can see why you are minted." Sophie said as she pulled her backpack off. "These guys tip well. $20 tip on a $10 deal." Sophie added as Kendra laughed.

"That's just the start. These guys are so hooked that they would sell their own mother for half a gram. Pays well for us." She said as Sniffer came bounding up to them. Kendra immediately bent down and started to stroke the dog allowing him to lick her face. Linda followed shortly after still wearing her bright neon pink coat.

"Not exactly trying to blend in." Sophie commented under her breath to Kendra.

"Looks exactly like every other sixty year old." Kendra sniggered. Linda approached them red in the face from her short walk. Sophie followed Kendra's lead as she handed over the bulk of the money. Linda counted out 10% and gave it back to them. Sophie didn't miss how Kendra still had one had in her pocket around a good portion of the money she hadn't handed over.

"Now go home. It's not safe for young kids like you out here." Linda said to the pair of them as Sophie grabbed her bike. The ride home was fairly quiet as it wasn't late enough for the real danger to come out and too cold for most to want to be out anyway.

"I'm home!" She yelled into the kitchen as she shrugged off her backpack. The added protection of the girl scout sweater meant that she hadn't been overly cold outside but now that she was inside, she could appreciate just how warm the inside of the house really was. She looked quickly into the living room where Tony and Ziva were on the couch watching what Sophie assumed was a James Bond movie. It was one of the ones with Sean Connery in it and Sophie racked her brain through endless movie nights on campus before realizing it was Goldfinger. She and Benjamin had watched it with a group of other prospective trainees before training. She looked in the kitchen for something that could actually pass as real food and found nothing. During her training, she had learned how to skin a squirrel in five different ways, capture a pigeon and kill it, and what type of mushrooms you could safely eat but the sort of food you would see every day was limited to toast, eggs, and pancakes. She also didn't want to ask the older agents to help her. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of rubbing it in that she was only ten so instead she settled for a sandwich. She made her sandwich and came over to the couch where Tony and Ziva were sitting. Since the only other chair in the room faced away from the TV and she really did like James Bond, she settled for sitting on the floor next to Ziva and ate her sandwich. She stayed in that position for almost two minutes before Ziva leant down and pulled her up onto the couch next to her. Sophie tried not to freeze up at this sudden display of affection. Nobody at Unit J ever did that to her and Sophie put it down to a cultural difference. Maybe Americans were just a bit more touchy feely than the brits? Having never been to America before, Sophie decided that this must be the answer and tried not to pull away. Ziva tucked the blanket around all three of them and put her arm around Sophie as she settled back into watching the film. She remembered back to a week ago when they were all in Gibb's house and Sophie had asked them whether they were a couple. Tony had said yes but Ziva had said that it was super complicated. Currently, Ziva's head was lying on Tony's shoulder and they were holding hands. She had seen the older agents on campus who were all flirty and giggly when they were in relationships as well as awkward silences that could overtake a room with the relationship but here, it was silent but in a way that Sophie felt that they had been doing this for a very long time. She had seen a few of the really old married couples who were so completely at peace with each other that it felt like nothing would ever shake them and she couldn't help but notice that Tony and Ziva fit into that category. The category that has transcended the need for words. Even though the mission had only just started, Sophie felt she would be sad to see it end.

 **A/N Thanks for being so patient with this update! I have been super busy lately. I have also realized that a few chapters ago I said that Kendra was supposed to be her mentor, but once I started writing in Kendra, it made more sense for her to be a friend who she was the same age as Sophie. I also realize for those (most!) who have figured it out, there is a massive age disparity between what is canon and what I have written concerning Sophie's grandfather. It works for my story so I figured I would use it. Thank you to Robert Muchamore for the inspiration for Unit J! (He wrote the CHERUB series.)**


	14. Chapter 14

Sophie soon got used to her new life as a drug dealer and was soon raking in the dollar bills. Mission policy states that all money made by an agent on a mission has to be donated to charity so Sophie had got around that by buying herself some new clothes. Things are quite a bit cheaper in the US then they are in the UK so Sophie soon had something to supplement her wardrobe of jeans and t-shirts. Each delivery was fairly easy and Sophie soon learned that crack addicts looked like normal people. She saw college students, old women, young mothers, and one really flamboyant fifty year old man who tipped almost five times the cost. She logged each address that she was asked to deliver too and passed the information on to NCIS who would in turn pass it on to Metro to deal with later. She knew NCIS were tracking the calls from Linda's different burn phones. As an agent, Sophie knew basic hacking skills and could clone the hard drive of any computer with ease but she was most impressed by Agent McGee's skills. She had visited the surveillance house that was across the street from where the three of them were staying and it looked like something that you would find in Q's lab in a James Bond movie. On the outside, it looked like every other house but the inside was wired so that it could pick up wireless transmitters from listening devices, intercept calls from Linda, and decipher intel hidden in seemingly meaningless computer chatter.

Sophie had just finished her evening as a dealer and was sitting in the kitchen of the Hayes' house. Ziva had just cooked some fantastic lasagne and Sophie was finishing off telling them about the latest plans for which Linda needed a dogsbody.

"She hasn't given a huge amount of detail. She just says she needs someone who isn't claustrophobic and can fit into small spaces. She wanted Kendra to do it but Kendra doesn't like small spaces. I figured it would be something that you can earwig me for and I can plant devices." Sophie said as she put a steaming hot piece of lasagne into her mouth. It burned the inside of her mouth and she was forced to take long slow dragon breaths in the effort to cool her mouth down. Tony and Ziva smirked a little at this, Sam smiled wearily, and McGee seemed a little puzzled.

"I have been combing through the chatter of the last few days and there hasn't been much talk about a new plan. Linda has been calling people more recently and from the small amount of texts that she has been sending, she really wants to get a hold of people." McGee said as he blew on his lasagne.

"In the past when AHG has made that many calls, it is usually because they are planning a raid on something big. Could be a warehouse or something like that. The last raid they did was on a military base in the UK. They took weapons and bullet proof gear mostly but as you can buy weapons more easily here, I wouldn't bet on that being the target. McGee, do you know if there is any warehouses that they would be likely to hit?" Sam said thoughtfully. Sophie agreed with him. It did seem a logical place to target especially with the numbers of people being called. "It also fits in with the profile of Sophie being needed. Sophie could enter the warehouse through the air ducts and be placing something for them or opening the door or disabling the security system." Sam continued lost in his thought process. Sophie wasn't worried but the look of Tony and Ziva's face showed that they were.

"It'll be fine. It will be really useful to gain some more intel about the members of AHG even if nothing else comes of it." Sophie said as she continued to eat the lasagne.

"Yes. It's not an opportunity we can pass up. We will be watching the whole time though and if something goes wrong we will storm the place." Sam said decidedly. Ziva meanwhile thought she might throw up. She didn't want to imagine Sophie getting caught between the police and AHG who would most certainly be in the warehouse. Sophie seemed too eager to go and Ziva was sure she didn't understand the risks. She could be shot by both sides or get trapped in there or get made by AHG or… her thought process was cut off by a reassuring smile from Sophie.

"I've done worse." Was all she said quietly to her. Ziva wasn't quite sure whether she meant this to be reassurance.

"Are you sure this is gonna be safe?" Tony piped in. Ziva felt a little relieved that she wasn't the only one worried.

"I am trained. I can handle it." Sophie said to him. Ziva was reminded of her own father sending her into dangerous situations when she was only a little older than Sophie. She had said the same thing to him at the time, keen to prove herself. The difference here was that Ziva cared about Sophie's safety.

"Nothing about this mission is safe. It's why we are all here." Sam said his voice taking on a tone that was banking on exasperation. She heard the meaning that Sam hadn't said but all of them nonetheless understood: somebody has to do it and why not us? She found Tony's hand and squeezed it and watched as Tony smiled at her showing his appreciation for her support. All of this completely passed Sophie by.

"Sophie, try to squeeze some more information out of Linda. It will make it easier for us to plan mission safety." Sam said as he stood up. Sophie followed him out into the hall before he left for the surveillance house. "And if you don't want to do this, you know the drill. We can pull out and it won't affect you." Sam said to her quietly as he watched for any signs of backing out. True to her nature, Sophie stood defiantly. It had been a bet accepting Sophie into Unit J as she had been so young but her personality of not giving in shone through. He had no doubt that she would continue but like with everything, it was important to know the limits.

"Why would I back out at the critical moment?" Sophie asked indignantly. "This raid is gonna unearth so much intel and why would I want to back out? I love missions." She added as Sam left the house. McGee left soon after leaving the three of them all together. Sophie wandered back into the living room where Ziva was making some popcorn up for the three of them. Tony had pulled a movie up on the TV and was settling down for some more James Bond except it was one of the newer films with Daniel Craig. Sophie sat down on the couch next to him and watched as the opening scene came up on the screen. She recognized it immediately as Skyfall and watched as there was some massive over the top car chase starting off the film. Ziva soon came over to join them but turned the volume down a bit and had a look on her face as if she was going to lecture her.

"Are you sure about this? I don't know what gang wars are like in the UK but here people get shot and killed really easily." Ziva started and Sophie geared up for the long rant. She knew that Ziva needed to get it. As Ziva was going on and on about how irrationally dangerous all this was, Sophie wondered if Ziva had kids of her own. She had worked with Moussad before and they certainly didn't have the same safety reservations about going undercover as Ziva seemed to. David, the guys she had worked with before seemed to throw her into the most reckless situations with his only concern being the endgame and hadn't Ziva mentioned that she was once Moussad so it wasn't like she was oblivious to the vitalness of intelligence gathering that came from these types of raids. Sam knew the risks and was happy to send her, Sophie herself knew exactly what she was signing up for and she knew that it was the type of situation that Unit J agents relish in. Ziva was just coming to her closing argument when the opening credits for Skyfall started.

"I know the risks. I know it doesn't appear like I do but I do. My last mission was to the Gaza Strip. I was working undercover as a street girl trying to find the ways that supplies were being illegally smuggled from Israel into Gaza when I uncovered a terror cell that was planning on bombing all the major attractions and the potential deaths were in the thousands. The situation that I was in meant that I couldn't contact my mission controller about it and although I gathered a ridiculous amount of intel about it, it wasn't until the last second that the bombings were prevented. During my time undercover, I was attacked, harassed and nearly assaulted. The guys who attempted it ended up in the ICU and one died. I know what you see is a ten year old with no experience and no ability to grasp what I am doing but believe me, I know what I signed up for and that mission? I would do it all over again without hesitating. Here, the circumstances are different, I have my mission controller on hand, and you guys so going to a warehouse raid, on the grand scheme of things I have done, isn't really that big." Sophie finished quietly. She didn't really like talking about what had happened to her on her last mission but she needed Ziva to see what she was capable of.

"On the news it talked of the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem bombings that were averted at the last second. They apprehended about fifty people in relation to it." Tony said quietly remembering to a few months back when there had been talk of an averted disaster.

"That was me." Sophie said quietly. "They couldn't say so, obviously. I got a double promotion from that." She added as she stared at the screen trying to avoid Ziva's gaze. Tony hugged her and whispered to her how proud he was. Ziva sank down onto the couch. Tony knew that this meant a lot to Ziva. As her own sister had been lost to a terror bombing, Ziva felt a mixture of emotions at how this one had been prevented. She felt proud and relieved that the bombings had stopped but was no more comforted at how Sophie seemed so okay at being in the crossfire of a gang war.

"All that allows for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Sophie quoted at Ziva. Sophie didn't know that that was Ziva's reason for joining Moussad or her reason for staying at NCIS. Now her reasoning felt like a weapon used against her. She wanted nothing more than to stop Sophie from being in danger but her reasoning was the same as her own and she couldn't fault her for it. Tony sensed Ziva's reluctance to give up the fight but a quiet understanding as to why Sophie wanted to fight. She settled instead for hugging Sophie and trying to find comfort in that, although she was going to do this raid, at least she was safe tonight. Sophie didn't struggle against her and let her hold her. She felt Ziva pull her into her lap and shuffle over to Tony so that Ziva was leaning on him. Sophie felt too old to sit in someones lap and resisted the urge to squirm and one lone thought crossed her mind. What would her life have been like if she had grown up with parents?


	15. Chapter 15

It was a Friday night when the raid came together. Sophie and Kendra met up with Linda and about twenty other gang members and they all piled into the back if someones minivan. Kendra was going in with the main gang and Linda told them on the way there that they were going to be moving mass amount of cocaine that had been delivered earlier in the day. These types of shipments were rare as they were easily caught and a mass loss of revenue for the dealers but due to a backlog of order, they had all arrived at the same time. Sophie was there to get them inside the warehouse and to disable the alarm system. Kendra had already talked her through the alarm system previously enabling McGee to gain better insight into which warehouse they were targeting. Just then the shotgun passenger turned around and addressed the van.

"So as you all know, loose lips sink ships. We will be doing a lot of movement tonight. Everyone here gets $100 dollars at the end. Follow either myself or Linda's orders." The guy said his face hidden by a balaclava. Linda handed both Kendra and Sophie a balaclava which they placed over their heads. Combined with black jeans and a well fitted hoodie, they both looked like stereotypical burglars. The van pulled up to the warehouse and Linda handed Sophie a headlamp. Sophie also had her backpack filled with her listening device placing kit as well as her earwig which she would place in once she was out of sight of AHG. She had scouted the sight once McGee had figured it out - AHG didn't want to tell the gang members in fear of someone snitching.

The warehouse was designed as a gymnastics facility but its poor location and lack of funds led it to be shut down almost five years earlier and selling to a property investor who leased it out. The problem was that AHG hadn't properly leased it and due to the quick turn around nature of the smuggling operation, they felt they could get away without doing it. The drugs had been smuggled in earlier that day and had been left there in a shipping container in the warehouse and then the security reset itself at 6:00pm every night hence the need for Sophie to creep in through the vents and disable it, then reset it once they left. Linda led her round to where Sophie knew the air vent shafts connected up on to the roof and together they went up the fire escape. Linda used an electric screwdriver to ply open the vents then Sophie pushed her backpack in and switched on her headlamp and slithered inside. Pushing her backpack in front of her, Sophie wriggled away from Linda down the shaft, it creaking quietly under her weight. As soon as she was a good distance away from Linda she pulled her earwig connecting her to MTAC out of her backpack and put into her ear as well as activating the small camera she had attached to her headlight giving the agents in MTAC a good view of what she was doing.

"McGee?" Sophie whispered hoping her voice wouldn't echo. "McGee are you there?" Sophie was greeted by the sound of people moving around on the other end.

"Yes, coming to you all the way from NCIS HQ you have McGee, Gibbs, and Sam Jones. Don't worry we can see you." McGee said and Sophie breathed a sigh of relief.

"Right, I am going to go and disable to security alarms." Sophie whispered as she spiderman crawled along the shaft towards the security room. She peered through the cracks in the air vent shaft looking for any lone security guards who could still be there. Luckily for her, the room was empty and she could easily kick in the grate. She slipped quietly into the room where she pulled a small device that looked like an ear piecing gun out of her backpack. This was a listening device placer designed to fire bugs the size of a hair into a couch cushion or something like that. The warehouse wasn't commonly used but after a quick debate with NCIS, it seemed better to place them than not to. She quickly fired the gun silently into the lone couch in the room and after a quick deferral to McGee to check that he was picking them up, she went over the main security system and paused the tapes. McGee then remotely activated them to play back a loop of the past few hours in case anyone checked them. Sophie then crept silently out of the room taking care to take her backpack with her, and slipped down a staircase leading to the main floor of the warehouse. She could see the shipping container but she wouldn't be able to open it without alerting the rest of the gang members outside. She went round and quickly placed a couple of listening devices as well as a few small cameras giving a wide-angle lens view of the container as well as where they were planning on putting the drugs before putting the device gun back into her backpack and going over to open the doors. The doors went open with a loud crash as AHG helped her from the outside. Linda gave her a small thumbs up before instructing her to go the roof and keep a look out. Linda handed her a radio that would allow her to contact her and Sophie disappeared outside back up the fire escape. She didn't fancy crawling back through the air ducts.

"All listening devices placed. AHG are going through the containers now. McGee, Sam, can you see everything going on in the room?" Sophie whispered as she ran up to the roof and settling herself into a classic snipers nest position.

"Yes. Camera placement is a bit off but nothing we can't work with. We have got cameras watching the warehouse. You should be good for the moment." Sophie heard McGee's reassuring words and figured that she was good for the moment. She settled back to watch the road that led up the warehouse. It was dead silent and Sophie figured her job was probably the most useless but it meant she wasn't doing manual labour downstairs so she happily settled into watching the road.

Back in MTAC, the three surveillance agents: Gibbs, McGee, and Sam were sitting in chairs watching the various camera angles that Sophie had placed and running each face through the system trying to put names to faces. The most important guys were wearing balaclavas but after an hour of working, the temperature was clearly warm enough that they had taken them off enabling McGee to start running names. Some were small time petty criminals known to the local cops but scarily enough, Linda only had one fine on her record from twenty years ago. She made her life living under the radar.

"You know what this reminds me of?" Came a small voice over the feed from Sophie. "Now you see me. You know the movie about magicians and how they steal money from a safe by turning it into a glass room. They had the FBI agent working for them the whole time except here they think that I am working for the gang when in reality, I work for a federal agency." McGee stifled a laugh and exchanged a look with Gibbs.

"DiNozzo." McGee mouthed at Gibbs.

"McGee?" She asked again.

"Yeah, still here don't worry. I haven't actually seen that film but you can ask Tony about it when you get home." McGee said quietly as he tried not to laugh.

"Don't think Ziva would like it though. She rolls her eyes every time that we start talking about movies." Sophie added thoughtfully.

"It's because you talked for four hours straight about movies once and don't let her get a word in edgeways." McGee said as Sophie laughed in agreement. Sam flipped his microphone to mute and indicated that McGee to do the same. McGee followed soon after as they continued to listen to what was going on in the warehouse but Sophie wouldn't be able to hear them.

"I didn't think Sophie would have fit in with Tony and Ziva as well as she did. I think she will be very sad to leave." Sam said quietly as he watched Sophie diligently watching the road.

"Tony and Ziva have been together unofficially and officially for a long time. It surprised me how well they took to her." McGee said and Gibbs realized that Tony and Ziva had never told him about their missing child. Privately he thought that Sophie leaving at the end of this would tear Ziva apart and take Tony down with her. To Tony, their missing daughter was a massive build up of "what ifs" and missing of the idea of raising a daughter whereas to Ziva, their daughter had been a real person who she had loved and held. Now, Sophie, the stand in daughter was someone who they both interacted with every day and had grown used to having around. To Ziva, losing her was reopening an old wound but to Tony, this was going to be a massive loss of a magnitude he had not experienced. Gibbs was not looking forward to her leaving and he didn't think that Tony and Ziva had fully realized that Sophie was not staying forever.

"Sophie is really good at her job and I can only hope she hasn't made emotional connections as well. It is the most dangerous thing for an agent to do. She is young and it is easy to do." Sam said quietly. "What the hell is that?" Sam suddenly said staring at the corner of the screen that showed the road that led up to the warehouse. Where Sophie was, she could only see the driveway but the road that led up to it was a good few miles long. On turn off, Sam had seen the classic white markings of the Metro Police vans. McGee clicked his microphone back on and alerted Sophie to the vans coming up the drive.

"Sophie, you need to get out of there. Metro is on their way." McGee said urgently into the microphone as he watched Sophie clamber out of her sniper post and head into the building.

"Cops! Cops!" Sophie yelled into the building. If anyone had looked outside, they would have wondered how Sophie knew there were cops on the way but in situations like these, it was best never to doubt the yeller. AHG immediately started their mass evacuation plan of grabbing whatever they could and piling into the minivans. Sophie was shoved in the angry haste to get out as the vans started to make their way into a field. They couldn't use the roads because that was where the cops were. The last minivan was just hightailing it out into the field when the cop cars pulled up the warehouse. The minivan driver floored the accelerator and to their surprise, the cops didn't follow them and they drove through the bumpy field, taking an alternative route to the main road. Sophie was sitting on the floor in one of the middle vans of the convoy with Kendra squashed in beside her. All the seats were taken and every time the van went over a bump or though a small ditch, Sophie was jolted against the legs of one of the guys or into Kendra's lap. Due to them trying to keep a low profile, there were no lights on in the car but Sophie could hear that Kendra was scared through her breathing as well as the continuous clenching of Sophie's hand.

"You okay?" Sophie whispered to Kendra.

"Yeah. Just not what I expected. Linda said we wouldn't get caught. She said that we would be fine." Kendra said and Sophie could hear the wavering in her voice. Coming from someone who spent her afternoons dealing cocaine, Sophie was a little surprised at Kendra's change of heart. Still, this was a police chase and not just flying around under the radar.

"We're gonna be okay." Sophie whispered as she hugged Kendra. Sometimes at times like these, the lines between the mission and the people she was dealing with get blurred. At the end of this, Sophie knew that Kendra was probably going to face charges and spend time in a juvenile prison and Sophie couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Even if she didn't get charged, she would end up dealing stronger stuff or getting hooked on it then spending the rest of her life as an addict. But for now, she hoped that Kendra would get her life back on track. The cars suddenly made a sharp right turn causing the wheel to come of the road and the occupants were thrown to the side as they made it back onto the road. Thankfully the car didn't tip but the high speed turns caused Sophie's heart to beat incredibly fast. She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself as the car slowed to a more reasonable pace. Within fifteen minutes they were back on the streets of the housing estate with the car coming to a halt. Kendra and Sophie were pushed out and they both sat on the sidewalk trying to come to terms with what happened.

"What did you tell your parents?" Sophie finally asked as Kendra looked confused. "About where you were tonight?" She pressed.

"I told them I was staying at your place. My mom is working the graveyard shift tonight so I can probably go home. What was your excuse?" Kendra asked as they both started to walk home.

"Me? I told them I was going to a late movie night at the Youth Centre."

"And they bought that?" Kendra said astonished.

"Well yeah. They both work a lot so they don't tend to ask to many questions. They seem to be under the impression that I have got my life together and are acting as the good girl." Sophie laughed as the reached the stop where they parted separate ways.

"Well, see you tomorrow. Meet up at the Youth Centre?" Kendra asked. Sophie nodded in agreement as she made her way back to her house.

Sophie checked her watch as she headed up the path to her house. It was just past midnight and in February, it was pretty cold. As soon as she made it into the house, Ziva swooped in, like a vulture on a recent kill, and pulled her into a hug. Clearly she must have heard about the police chase and judging from the first night that she had been out, once again over reacted. This time she didn't yell or get angry but instead just chivvied her into eating something and showering. Sophie was bone tired now that the adrenaline in her system had worn off and wanted nothing more than to fall asleep but Ziva had other ideas. She left Sophie alone to shower and Sophie revelled in the hot water on her skin. It burned away the coldness of the night and left her feeling sleepy. She grabbed her fluffy pyjamas, one of her many purchases with drug money, and staggered into her room that was thankfully still warm. Tony came up and gave her a hug. Unlike Ziva, he didn't seem to have the urgency to hug her as Ziva did and Sophie liked how he gave her some space.

"We were worried tonight. McGee wasn't giving us a huge amount of information and then you weren't picking up one the earwig." Tony said to her as he tucked her into bed. Sophie tried not to feel like a three year old and he tucked the covers over her body.

"I think it must have fallen out whilst I was alerting the rest of the gang. Why was metro there anyway?" Sophie yawned .

"On high secrecy missions, sometimes you end up with two different agencies working on the same case. Metro clearly received a tip off and went to investigate at the same time that we were running out op." Tony said quietly. Suddenly, he leant forward and kissed the top of her forehead. As he went out of the room, Sophie snuggled down under the covers. Outside the door, she could hear Tony and Ziva having an whispered argument over whether Ziva could go in there.

"I have turned of the light, it is half past one in the morning, no you can't go in there. You hugged her when you came in." Tony whispered quietly as he pulled her away from the door, Ziva quietly protesting. "She isn't going anywhere at the moment, Ziva." Sophie tried to tune them out. She heard them leave the door and she fell asleep.


	16. Chapter 16

The morning after the raid, Sophie woke up extremely late. As it was the weekend, it didn't really matter as she didn't really have anywhere else to go. After the excitement of last night, there had been radio silence. Sophie knew that this was a common practice amongst organized criminals was not to talk to each other afterwards and that they were to pretend the raid never happened. The radio silence was there as it was suspected amongst the gang members that there would be increased monitoring and they didn't want to incriminate themselves. Sophie knew there was increased monitoring because she knew it was NCIS doing the monitoring. Instead she woke up late and had a late breakfast. Tony and Ziva were nowhere to be found and it was only when Sophie saw the note detailing that they were in the surveillance house that she stopped worrying. Instead she decided to get dressed and take her breakfast over there. She pulled on a set of leggings and an old hoodie before going downstairs and making herself a bowl of cereal. The walk across to the surveillance house was brief so she didn't bother to put on her coat or outdoor shoes and walked across in her slippers, locking the door as she left.

The surveillance house across the street was almost identical in layout but instead of there being two bedrooms up stairs, they were taken up by a large amount of computer software allowing them to monitor the activities of the various gang members. McGee was permanently on duty there and had moved onto a couch in one of the rooms with Sam joining them periodically but he was staying at one of the hotels a couple of minutes away. All four of them were in deep discussion and didn't notice Sophie coming in.

"Not much radio chatter going on here although that was to be expected."

"Have we found out who had a hand in the death of Lieutenant King? I know that we have been pressing Sara for more information but she doesn't seem to know anything more than what Sophie has already found out."

"Even so, if we can gain enough evidence to shut down AHG then we can interrogate them all about the lieutenant."

"Not good enough. These guys are pros at withstanding interrogation. Have we had a visual on Henderson himself yet?"

"No. And it's unlikely we will. Sophie is good at getting into the gang and we have enough to prosecute about forty members but they would only get charged for last nights raid which is a max of about five-ten years."

"We probably won't get any more information than what we have already. Sophie's been here for a few months now and the information is good but running dry. It might be time to pull the plug on this. Sophie has missed enough school already and unlike you guys, we have a limit to how long we can run a useless op." Sam said quietly. Sophie could hardly believe what she was hearing. Pulling the plug after an op like last night?

"She has had a major breakthrough in uncovering names. You can't pull her out now." Ziva retorted.

"We can give it another week or two but if she is just doing deals for Linda then that isn't anything new. We can reassess in a fortnight." Sam said

Sophie cleared her throat to let them know she was there.

"Are you going to pull me out?" She asked trying to stop herself from sounding angry.

"We haven't had the breakthrough that we were hoping for. The drug dealing is enough to put away Linda for life but we haven't heard from anyone more senior and we haven't had any new information that we didn't already know. You know the drill. We can't keep you here forever." Sam said.

"But I have just done the major raid!" Sophie cried out. She didn't climb through that air vent shaft for nothing.

"And now they are all on radio silence."

"But that was Metro's fault! They were the ones who tailed us out of the warehouse and nearly screwed up the entire mission!" Sophie argued now really pissed at Sam. She didn't want to stop this mission now, not when they had come this far.

"Sophie, the more you argue on this, then the less likely it is that you will stay. You have two weeks to either gain some more information that is of some major value and give us a reason to continue the mission or you go home. This isn't your fault and it won't reflect badly on your record but this isn't a holiday camp. You are now on your ninth month away from school and you need to get your education back on track. Elaine has already asked for you to be put on an educational mission suspension till your school work is back on track and it was only through some incredible plea bargaining that you were allowed to come on this mission. Don't fight me on this." Sam finished, his raised voice was calm but firm and Sophie knew that the discussion was over. She could only hope she managed a breakthrough on this mission.

Tony and Ziva were a little surprised at Sam's ultimatum and Ziva felt a small wave if panic wash over her. Sophie was going in two weeks? Sometimes she forgot that Sophie had an another life waiting for her in the UK and she had grown so used to looking after her. She couldn't think of ways to argue with Sam that didn't seem so personal. She couldn't exactly tell Sam that she wanted them to continue the mission just because she didn't want Sophie to go. The realization that Sophie would leave them made Ziva feel like the air had been knocked out of her lungs. She quietly excused herself to use the bathroom and then, once alone, took some deep breaths to try and keep herself calm. Maybe she could take Sophie away somewhere… She shook the thought from her head. Sophie had a life at Unit J and she wouldn't be the one to force her into staying here and she certainly couldn't do that without having an real claim over keeping her. Ziva knew that Sophie talked very little of Unit J simply because she wasn't really allowed to, Unit J being top-secret and all. Once she felt sure she could cope, she reemerged from the bathroom to see Tony who hadn't missed the sudden realization that Sophie would be leaving. His face looked a little pained and she could only manage a small smile this time.

"We will be fine." Was all she could say as Tony looked down at the floor.

"I guess I didn't think it would be so soon." Tony said quietly. "It's really nice to have her around. Makes me wish for the life we should have had. It's like in "It's a wonderful life" where they show all the different lives you could have had." Tony said quietly. "I think I now really know what you have been going through all these years." Ziva smiled at him sadly. "I now understand why you didn't tell me and if our roles were reversed, I would have done the same thing." Ziva couldn't help it as she felt a tear roll down the side of her face. She had always known that he didn't really understand what she had gone through and now the actualized concept of losing a child was a nail biting reality for him. The worst thing was, she had hoped that he never would feel that pain the way she did and now he was, it caused her even more pain.

"We should probably get ourselves together. Sophie doesn't know about our loss and she will think this is all about her. Can't let it get to her head." Ziva said quietly and Tony laughed.

Meanwhile Sophie was angrily ignoring Sam. Being pulled off a mission because of a lack of information was akin to being sent back in disgrace. She had bragged about being promoted on Campus and now she didn't want to go home and have to deal with Benjamin's smug face. The worst thing was, she had no clue where to start. She left the surveillance house and walked back to her undercover house when she felt her phone in her pocket start to ring. She pulled it out expecting it to be Linda when she saw a blocked number on the screen. She quickly accessed the icon that allowed her to record the call and live stream in to the house the answered the call.

"Hello?" she questioned into the phone.

"Hello, is this Sophie Hayes?" Sophie recognized a faint British accent over the sound of a deep male voice.

"Yeah, it's Sophie."

"Could you come to the Youth Centre in about fifteen minutes?" The voice continued.

"Yeah. I'll be there." Sophie replied quickly trying not to sound too eager. She hoped it was someone higher up than Linda and provide some kind of breakthrough. The phone call was ended from the other end of the line and Sophie ran to get some proper shoes and her bike. If McGee had been listening then they should know where she was going but since the argument with Sam, she doubted he had the headphones on now. Instead she messaged McGee and told him where she was going before grabbing her bike and biking off to the Youth Centre.

As it was about lunch on a Saturday afternoon, the Youth Centre was packed out with five year olds on the playground and a mass arts and crafts table. Sophie had surpassed the age where arts and crafts were cool but she reminisced her time as a junior Unit J agent where glitter was the highlight of her week. She went to her usual meeting spot with Linda but instead of Linda, there was a small red headed girl about her own age.

"Are you Sophie?" The girl asked, the February sunlight catching her hair making it appear that it was on fire.

"Yeah." Sophie said. She definitely didn't have the voice from the phone call.

"I'm Claire. My dad wanted me to meet you here and bring you back to our place for lunch. He says he wants to thank you for something. Not sure how he could know you though." Claire said thoughtfully as she wheeled her bike along the path. Sophie followed her and watched Claire. She seemed to be the sort of person who still did arts and crafts and she looked fairly nervous at the idea of cycling along a busy street. Sophie guessed that Claire had little to no idea what her father did. She followed Claire along the busy street and up through a fairly small park to where the richer end of the neighbourhood lived. This was the sort of place where everyone owned a labrador and sent their kids to private school. The houses were well manicured and the lawns were neatly terraced. The change between these houses and the housing estate that the Hayes lived on was astonishing. She could hardly believe that they were within walking distance of each other. Claire led them along the the furthest house on the right and she went inside leading Sophie with her. Claire neatly took off her shoes indicating Sophie to do the same. Sophie felt very out of place in this neat and tidy house. There were family photos on the wall with a picture of a red headed woman, Claire and a man. Sophie looked at the picture more closely and realized that it was Andrew Henderson, the very guy that they had been after, albeit aged twenty years. Sophie could hardly contain her excitement. Andrew Henderson was this close to them. Claire led them through to a well lit kitchen where the red headed woman was tossing a salad and distributing up food onto four different plates. It was all very posh food that Sophie doubted she could pronounce, so different to pizza and take out she had with Tony and Ziva.

"You must be Sophie." The red headed woman said as Claire took a breadstick. "Andrew just wants to have a quick chat with you." She said as she indicated for Sophie to go into a study just off the kitchen. Sophie walked in and saw a small study with pictures of his family as well as pictures of Henderson surrounded by various different people. In the centre of the room in a desk chair sat Andrew Henderson.

"Hello." Sophie said to gain his attention. "I'm Sophie." The man turned around and offered her his hand.

"I'm Andrew Henderson. It's good to meet you Sophie. I wanted to congratulate you on the success of the raid last night. You helped to unlock the doors as well as give us enough time to evade the police. I wanted to thank you for all you efforts." He said without the slightest hint of irony.

Meanwhile back in the surveillance house, McGee just received a text detailing a picture that was no doubt Andrew Henderson. The caption that Sophie had added underneath detailed "This the breakthrough you wanted?"


	17. Chapter 17

McGee stared at the picture of Andrew Henderson and tried not to laugh at the snarky comment Sophie had left underneath. It was undoubtably him although he had aged considerably since the last university photo they had of him. He had put on a couple of pounds and his hair was greying slightly but it was definitely the same person. McGee wondered how long Sophie had been sitting on this information because the timing of it seemed too coincidental with a threat to pull the mission.

"Boss, we have Henderson. Sophie is at his house." McGee yelled out of the main surveillance room in the house. Gibbs and Sam came running in and examined the picture.

"It's definitely him. No question about it. Can you text Sophie and see how much information she can find and if there is any chance we can get bugs into that house?" Sam immediately asked.

"Already done." McGee said as he showed the sent message to Sophie.

"How long has she had this information?" Gibbs said quietly voicing the concern that they were all feeling.

"I know Sophie. She doesn't sit on information. Withholding information on missions is cause for expulsion no matter how trivial. My guess is that she got lucky." Sam said firmly. "The ultimatum had very little to do with this type of breakthrough and there was no way that she could have sat on it and not mentioned it earlier."

"Anyways, what are we going to do now? You are not going to pull the mission are you?" Ziva said to Sam.

"No. We can't pull her out at this stage. I would suggest getting bugs into the house and gathering evidence. I know that we haven't found out who killed your lieutenant but taking down this gang could cause them to turn on each other in the court room." Sam said as he turned to leave the room. McGee's phone chimed and McGee turned to read the message left by Sophie.

"She says that she can get bugs in on a later visit but planting evidence will be harder. According to her new friend Claire, Henderson works from home and the mother only leaves the house for facials and massages but she thinks that she can do it." McGee summarized the message.

"Ok. Tell her to try and get some photographs of the house and some documents if she can." Sam instructed.

Meanwhile, Sophie was sitting with Claire in the TV room in the Henderson's house watching a teen flick. Claire was obviously quite shy amongst other people but once she got talking, she never stopped. Both girls had spent the past hour laughing about the antics of their parents and Sophie had to remind herself once or twice that Tony and Ziva were not her real parents. Apparently Claire's mother was a self proclaimed trophy wife/soccer mom and apparently spent most of her time either ferrying Claire to dance class or to singing lessons and when she wasn't doing that she was getting massages from her Californian masseuse.

"Doesn't sound like the most interesting life but then my Mum is a teacher so I can't talk." Sophie said as Claire laughed.

"What does she teach?" Claire asked,

"Languages." Sophie said pulling a face. "And my Dad is a film professor."

"That sounds really cool though, to have your Dad as a film professor. You must watch a lot of movies."

"We do. It's a lot less cool when you have to have my Dad's audio commentary on every single movie you watch ever. What does your Dad do?" Sophie asked even though she already knew.

"He runs a business, I guess but what were you doing to help him last night? He called you in to say thanks so I guess you probably know more than I do." Claire shrugged and Sophie felt a little disappointment. Claire knew nothing about her father's so called business. Just as they were talking Andrew Henderson poked his head around the door.

"I am ordering pizza and I can get some popcorn if you girls want some. Sophie, you can stay for supper but I just need a quick chat with you for a second." Sophie nodded and followed him out the door.

"I don't mind you hanging out with Claire but I need your word that you won't say anything to her or my wife for that matter about what my business is about. I don't want to bring my family into this." Henderson said urgently as Sophie nodded.

"I haven't said a word, sir. If she asks again, I can tell her I do a paper round and I had to stay to deliver late or something." Sophie said earnestly keen to impress him.

"Good girl." Henderson said condescendingly as he patted her on the head. Sophie resisted the urge to break his arm. "My second question is, if there were to be another job where we need your small size, would you be okay to do it?" Henderson said scanning her for any kind of weakness.

"Yes sir. Would need some kind of notice so I can figure out what to tell my parents but I can do it." Sophie said quickly.

"That's good. That's really good." Henderson said as he stared off into the distance. Sophie guessed the conversation was over and went back into the TV room to wait for pizza with Claire.

Tony and Ziva were back in their house now feeling relieved about Sam's decision not to abort the mission.

"This was the breakthrough we needed, I guess." Tony said quietly as he wrapped his hand around a cup of coffee.

"Yes. We came so close to losing her. Two weeks seems such a short time." Ziva added.

"I was talking about the case, but that too. I think there is something off about Sophie. I don't just mean about her background but her mannerisms. You told me that your father grew up in the UK but that he didn't speak of it much?" Tony said as he started to state his theory.

"He was evacuated out of Germany before the war and the persecution of the jews on kinder transport but so were thousands of other kids." Ziva said wearily.

"But I don't just mean that. She said she joined Unit J when she was three and you lost our Sophie within that same three month period." Ziva shook her head. "Seriously Ziva, you did. And that she was taken out of Israel at the same time." Tony pleaded with her.

"I can't deal with them being the same person, Tony, I just can't. At the end of this mission, what do you think will happen? I can't lose them, her, a second time. I just can't." Ziva said as she tried to stop the tears.

"This will answer the question though Ziva, if she is ours, then we will know that she is safe and well cared for. I don't know how long I can stand the unknown, Ziva. I need some answers. And you won't be losing her. You will know where she is and surely, it has to be better than this." Tony said as he flung his mug down onto the table.

"You think I don't want answers? You think I don't want to know where she is? It kills me everyday to be in the unknown but what happens when Sophie leaves? We will never see her again because that is the way it goes with missions. Part of her training is not getting close to people on missions and I think dropping that kind of bombshell on her will emotionally wreck her and not facing it is the only way that I can cope with the idea of never having her." Ziva shouted.

"Then we don't tell her. She never has to know. But I would like to know. My fears of what could have happened to our daughter far escalate what Sophie is doing now. I know that we will never get to be a proper family if this is her but maybe we would be able to stay in touch with her." Tony said as Ziva nodded.

"Get Abby to test her. If it is her then tell me. If it isn't then nothing will have changed. The problem is that we are going to have to tell Abby." Ziva said quietly as she rested her head in her hands.

"Tell Abby what?" Came the faint British accent as the front door shut. "Whose Abby?"

"Our forensic specialist. How much of that did you hear?" Tony asked hoping that she hadn't heard any of it.

"Just that you are going to have to tell Abby something." Sophie said her voice even and Tony couldn't tell whether she was lying or not.

"We have to tell Abby about the bugs that you are going to plant. She isn't read into the Unit J mission so we will have to think of some excuse as to how we got the bugs in there in the first place. Abby will probably freak out if she knew about you." Tony said as he handed her some tea.

"I had to stay for pizza at the Henderson's house. You would hardly know that he was an international drug dealer. Claire doesn't know anything about it and neither does his wife but then I think they like their cloud of ignorant bliss. He says that he might need me for another mission where they need someone small but he wasn't handing out any details." Sophie updated them as she settled down at the table. "Has Sam said anything about pulling the mission?" She asked as she sipped some tea.

"We can't pull you now that you have got in. My question is, that breakthrough you got was way to coincidental with the threat to pull you so how long did you have that card up your sleeve?" Tony asked her.

"I didn't. I got the call as I was leaving the house." Sophie said innocently.

"Really?"

"Yes. You can check my phone records if you don't believe me." Sophie said and Tony chose to believe her.

"Okay. I believe you. You seemed pretty angry at the idea of having to leave. Loving the good ole USA?" Tony teased her.

"Yeah right, being pulled off a mission for not getting a break through doesn't get you on other good missions. I don't want to be doing security checks for the rest of my career." Sophie said smiling a little.

"And here was me thinking that you didn't want to leave us." Tony laughed trying to hide his disappointment.

"That too." Sophie laughed. "But mostly my career."

Ziva slipped upstairs when she heard Sophie come in. Tony had put up a good argument for Sophie's real identity and she really did want it to be true but as she had almost had to face today, Sophie was leaving them and soon. Ziva had loved having her around but the threat of her leaving hung above them and she knew how dangerous it was to get emotionally involved in missions. Looking at Tony and Jeanne all those years ago and she had seen how that had nearly destroyed Tony. With a child, it would be even worse and she had to believe that she could get through this. Maybe Tony was right about needing to get out of the unknown. She hated the idea of having to tell Abby though. Abby was loving most of the time but her loyalty was firmly with Tony and although Tony had long since forgiven her for not telling him about Sophie, Ziva doubted that Abby would. And if it wasn't her then she would have to face the pity looks from both Abby and Gibbs. McGee was none the wiser but if it was her, Tim would forgive them both for not telling him. She heard Tony and Sophie laughing downstairs and made up her mind. They would test Sophie and they would get some answers. She took Sophie's tooth brush from the bathroom and put it into an evidence bag sealing the top. It would take her twenty minutes to get to HQ and she would tell Abby then. She put the evidence bag into her purse and went downstairs.

"I am just going to run some evidence to Abby. I'll see you later." She said to the pair of them who were still laughing about something.

"Okay. Talk later?" Tony said giving her an inquiring look. Ziva nodded and then she walked out the door.


	18. Chapter 18

Sophie finished her tea and disappeared upstairs to her room. Tony sat downstairs even more convinced that this was missing Sophie. The timeline was just too close together to be a coincidence and if Tony was absolutely honest with himself, he needed it to be Sophie not just because he had lost a daughter but because he couldn't stand to see Ziva in pain. He had never known the girl that Eli David had taken away from Ziva so for him, Sophie had been a concept but the idea of actually having her in the house as Unit J Sophie was had caused him to realize what he had lost. Tony felt his throat close up when he realized that Sophie wouldn't be staying now matter how much he wished for it. He knew that Ziva was going get Sophie tested then at least he would know. He could put a person to the concept. He hoped that the final wedge between him and Ziva would finally dissolve and maybe their family would finally be happy. This life as the Hayes family was like looking through the window into what he could have had in some kind of parallel universe.

"Hey Tony, I have got a message from Henderson. I think we won't have time for bugs to be planted. He says that he needs me now and to tell you that I am staying with friends for a few days." Sophie said sounding excited. A few days meant a long operation and in the drug trade this usually meant international travel or at least travelling out of state for a few days. "I am going to call Sam." She said quickly already dealing the number for Sam. Tony froze with this news. How could they track her? Would she be safe? Was their any possible way to keep her out of this and still proceed with this? It was like in the movies where time slows down before a crisis where the audience knew exactly what was going to happen but the characters are oblivious. He could hear Sophie talking to Sam and wanted nothing more than to grab her and run if only to stop her from going wherever Henderson wanted her to go.

"Tony. TONY!" Tony was jerked back to reality when Sophie hit him. "Sam says we need to call an emergency meeting right now. I have about an hour to decide whether I am in or not and we need to have a plan." Less than a minute later Tony saw McGee, Sam, and Gibbs walk through the door with matching business like decision on their faces. McGee pulled a laptop open and sat it down on the table with Sam and Gibbs flanking him discussing urgently about what Henderson wanted them to do.

"Has there been any chatter about what this op is about?"

"We will need sticking plaster trackers on Sophie at all times with a team following her."

"This could be the heart of the operation."

"I have to answer within the hour." Sophie said amongst the chatter. Tony dragged himself into the present and watched as McGee started running all chatter that had been going on over the past couple of days.

"Our plan of action is to send Sophie on this op as long as you are okay with this?" Sam said over the voices as he nodded towards Sophie. She returned his nod looking excited. Tony was vaguely reminded of a younger Ziva when she anticipated a fight. "We will place sticking plaster trackers on you and we will follow you wherever you go taking pictures, gathering information but the second that any of this goes wrong, you are going to activate the emergency tracker and we pull you, no questions. Okay? We are not doing Gaza all over again. You are my first priority on this mission okay?" Sam said firmly to Sophie. Tony remembered back to Sophie talking about how much danger she had been in on her last mission and felt sick. The warehouse raid was one thing but this? This was so much worse.

"How will I contact you?" Sophie asked quickly her voice now down to business.

"We can get a small radio transmitter to go into your shoe. Undetectable. Won't be a problem." Sam said.

"Okay. I will call Henderson and say I am down for it." Sophie said as she left the room pulling her phone out of her pocket as she went.

"Are you alright Tony?" McGee said as Sam followed her out of the room. "You look like you are going to throw up."

"I'm fine. I need to call Ziva." Tony said as McGee looked on worried.

"This is a breakthrough Tony. We need this to close the case." McGee said.

"It's not the case I am worried about."

"You guys have really gotten close to her. I never really saw you as the parenting type but she really seems to like you guys." McGee was taken aback when Tony suddenly stood up and ran out and McGee was half sure that he had seen a small tear roll down Tony's cheek. He shook himself off and stood up. Tony didn't get on with kids generally so he was probably just seeing things.

Sophie grabbed a change of clothes and stuffed them into her backpack as well as grabbing as many of the sticky transmitters that she could and stuffed them into her backpack under the pretence that they were blister plasters. Henderson had said she would need long clothes but that the weather was going to be hot. She was to meet him and five other people at the Youth Centre in half an hour and Sophie needed to be ready. She thought for a moment before sticking her extra strength pepper spray into her bag and pulled her reinforced stab proof hoodie over the top of her t-shirt. All agents had three items of clothing that had a specialized carbon fibre interior that wouldn't let a blade penetrate it stitched into the lining. It wasn't often that agents were stabbed or shot on missions but there had been a number of close calls and Unit J was taking no chances. She pulled her sneakers on and made sure that her reinforced jeans were covering all the major parts of her leg. She was just about to swing her backpack over her shoulders when Tony burst in and lifted her into a hug. Sophie was taken aback by this, Ziva was the one who gave out hugs and the way her was hugging her wasn't just a casual see-you-later hug but one that was I-will-never-see-you-again hug. Sophie hugged him back realizing that if this went tits-up then she wouldn't see him again. Missions pulls meant straight back to Unit J often without saying goodbye. Sophie felt her own throat close up and felt like she was dangerously close to crying. Tony carried her down the stairs and set her on the floor and handed her her backpack.

"Be safe. We will be on the radio transmitter. Just… be safe." Tony said wearily.

"Is Ziva going to get here before I go?" Sophie said feeling like she should say bye to her.

"No. Ziva freaked about the warehouse raid. She wouldn't let you go if she knew about this." Tony said as Sophie gave a shy smile.

"Yeah. Will you say goodbye to her from me? If I don't see you guys again?" Sophie said her voice sounding weird to her own ears.

"Yes. I will tell her." Tony said as he hugged her one last time.

"You guys were great to stay with by the way." Sophie said brightly as she walked out the door. It may have just been a throw away comment to her but to Tony, it was like receiving a Nobel Prize for the best parenting. He only wished Ziva could have said goodbye as well.


	19. Chapter 19

Ziva had turned her phone off as she drove to the Navy Yard to see Abby. She didn't particularly want to talk to anyone at the moment and she was still plucking up the courage to tell Abby what had happened. She couldn't very well ask her to do a paternity test without Abby taking on the part of Jeremy Kyle as well. Abby's lab was like it always was, loud music pumping out the speakers and Abby moving at a million miles an hour inside.

"Abby, ABBY!" Ziva shouted over the music. Immediately the music shut off and Abby came running over.

"Where have you guys been? Gibbs said there was a massive undercover mission going on and that you were working with a young agent but I wasn't allowed to meet her because she has to keep her identity a secret and if I was told then it would compromise all sorts of national security but I was to run all the evidence as I normally would…"

"Abby!" Ziva shouted again cutting Abby off from her spiel. "I need to talk to you about something but you have to promise me that you will not freak out or tell anybody." Ziva started trying to keep her voice even.

"Yeah. Of course, I promise. Spill." Abby said immediately staring at Ziva.

"Okay. I need you to run some DNA. If it comes back positive I will tell you the full story. But I need to know the results first." Ziva said as she pulled out Sophie's toothbrush.

"Okay. Who I am running it against?" Abby said as she swapped the toothbrush.

"It's a maternity test and me. I need you to run it against me."

"But why would you need to know who your mother was unless this isn't…" Abby stared wide eyed at Ziva. "What is going on Ziva? You want me to see if the DNA on this toothbrush is your child?" Abby whispered.

"Yes. I will tell you the full story if it comes back positive but if it doesn't then I need you to never mention it again." Ziva said sure of herself now. She didn't want to tell Abby at all but she could hardly deny her the full story after all she had done. Abby, uncharacteristically, didn't say anything and entered it into the system.

"Should I be running a paternity test as well?" Abby said, breaking the awkward silence that had settled on them.

"If it comes back positive then I know who the father is." Ziva said awkwardly.

"I really hope this comes back positive just because I wanna know this story. Well I also hope it isn't because then this is one hell of a MOAS that you didn't tell me and I am mightily pissed about that but then you kind of already spilled your MOAS with the possibility that this could come back positive. Who is the father?" Abby said rambling a little.

"Take a wild guess." Ziva said trying not to show how tired she was. This test meant the world to her and although she knew that Abby would never respect her privacy, she was still annoyed with her for it.

"Ohhh, I love guessing games." Ziva rolled her eyes before focusing back on the computer screen.

"It's Tony. Abby, its Tony." Ziva said exasperated.

"You and Tony! When?!" Ziva closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"The test hasn't come back yet." Ziva said quietly.

"I know you have a kid Ziva, you gave that away when you came in here asking me to do a test. You can't just dump information like that then not give anything away. If you didn't want me to know then why did you come here asking me to do the test?" Abby said her irritation spiking her words.

"Because Abby! I needed to know. I need to know whether this person is my daughter! I need to know Abby. We need to know and we need it to be her so if this test doesn't come back positive then it will kill me, Abby! I am falling to pieces here and I can't talk about it right now because telling you makes it too real so just back off for a moment." Ziva said as she stormed out of Abby's lab leaving Abby standing their stunned. Ziva ran to the ladies room and managed to lock herself in a stall. She needed it to be Sophie. She needed to know that Sophie was going to be safe and happy and not… Ziva couldn't finish the thought of what could have happened to her ten year old daughter at the hands of her father. She briefly thought of calling Tony but she didn't think she could take his pain as well as her own. All she could do was wait.

Meanwhile, Sophie was on a small cargo flight to an unknown place. The team this time was considerably smaller with no other kids on the plane and the next closest person to her in age was a pasty twenty year old college student who looked a little green. They were all packed between boxes claiming that it was vaccines but as it was a drug dealing plane, Sophie doubted that that was what they were. The flight was supposedly between four and five hours and after racking her brains, Sophie had come up with Mexico. She had activated her tracker as soon as they were in the air and could only hope that the rest of the team were on her tail. She tucked her knees up to her chest and attempted to close her eyes when the pasty college student suddenly emptied his guts all over the floor in front of her. Sophie felt the bile in her stomach rise as she smelt the awful stench of vodka vomit.

After an awful three more hours in which Sophie had though of at least a hundred ways to kill the pasty college student who had made her trip hell they went through a landing that Sophie was convinced was a crash. The pilot landed the plane like he was high on cocaine and had an epileptic fit on the way down. Once the world had stopped shaking, the small team jumped out of the plane into the hot, dusty air of (Sophie studied the sign closely) Mexico. She was hardly surprised and had barely enough time to celebrate her small victory before she was bundled onto the back of a truck where there three men standing up holding machine guns. She remembered from her mission briefing a few months before, that drug smugglers had armed guards with them to protect against rival gangs. The guns themselves appeared to be second hand at least with several scratches all over them. These types of guns were rarely reliable and more likely to harm the operator than the intended victim but with the guns being held above her head, Sophie still felt nervous being around them. She could remember from her training how to take apart the guns so they wouldn't go off and how to put them back together to ensure they would harm the operator and her skills on the range weren't something to be sniffed at. The truck bumped along the pothole infested mexican road and despite the guns above her, the scenery was quite beautiful. They trundled along for two hours with only a bottle of water each before the truck pulled up in front of what looked like a massively armed James Bond villain compound guarded by burly men holding machine guns. Their truck was waved through and they pulled up into a crudely made parking lot with beaten up trucks and rusted humvees. Everyone in the truck jumped out and was led towards what looked like the most beat up warehouse in Mexico. It had 50 calibre bullet holes in the sides and some pretty impressive fire damage and if a health and safety inspector every came to visit they would probably faint in shock. Inside there were buckets placed under holes in the roof and some crudely made tarp was over the worst of the holes. The team was led over to a corner where there was a a whole load of black and clear trash bags bagging up what looked like a mixture of white powder and weed. Sophie looked over to where there were about five girls between the ages of 13 and 19 bagging up the coke and lacing it with something that Sophie couldn't quite make out. Either way, the photos were going to be excellent.

"We are going to help with the bagging up. Remember to put gloves on and don't snort any of it. We are going to be cutting it with some of this." A big black dude said holding up another bag filled with white powder.

"What's in it?" The pasty college student asked as the black dude glared at him.

"Don't ask questions you don't wanna know the answers to." The dude barked at him. The pasty college guy went tomato red and went silent. Sophie moved over with the others towards the preparation station but the black dude pulled her aside.

"Not you, kid. Need you for something else." He said as he pulled her towards the fire escape. "Need you to fix the roof. Henderson said you aren't scared of heights." He pulled her up the fire escape until they got as high as it went. He handed her a staple gun and some more tarp. Sophie gasped in surprise as he easily lifted her the remaining seven feet onto the roof. The roof felt creaky under her feet and she could tell immediately why they needed someone small. Sophie felt too heavy for this task. There was human sized hole a couple of feet in front of her where she guessed that the last guy had fallen through. She moved quickly and agilely among the holes, lining up the tarp and starting to staple gun it into place. It was hard to keep the tarp in place and she could really have done with a second person up there but as she was the smallest she had to go. The sun was unrelentlesly beating down on her and despite her normally tanned skin, Sophie was feeling herself burn. Every half an hour someone would throw up some bottled water and Sophie would drink almost the entire thing. After three hours of being up there without anyone being able to see her, Sophie realized she could get pictures of the war hour through the holes and send them to NCIS or Unit J. She pulled a tiny pinpoint camera out of her pocket and lined it up with the edge of the hole she was currently working on. With no way to view the feedback camera, she had no idea if they were even vaguely looking into the warehouse but instead she had to trust her judgement and hope that they were. She also pulled a tiny listening device out of her pocket. She had thoughtfully packed as many as she could onto her person and these one resembled a small black circle with a similar consistency to duct tape that matched the tarp daily closely. Now that she had her system in place, she was able to place cameras nearly all over the warehouse.

McGee's survellience running had moved from the suburban house up into the more properly equipped MTAC. They had been able to track Sophie's location to a compound out in the mountains and after some searching, bartering and almost begging, found satellite images of her on the roof from earlier in the day. After studying them a little more closely, he realized that she appeared to be sticking something to each of the tarps from her pocket. McGee looked a little closer at the image before the realization dawned on him.

"We need the outgoing signals from that area, specifically ones going out in short bursts." McGee said to the MTAC tech who clicked a couple of buttons on his keyboard before bringing up the outgoing signals.

"Hone in on that one." He said one of the circles that seemed to be in the middle of the building. A couple of seconds later they could heard the audio that was going on inside the building as well as getting half of the warehouse in view. The other half of the screen appeared to be blocked by something.

"Nice work Spielberg." McGee muttered to himself watching Sophie holding onto the tarp.

The audio was of very poor quality and half of it appeared to be in Spanish which McGee could hardly make out at all when the door to MTAC opened and Tony walked in.

"Have you seen Ziva anywhere? She isn't answering her phone." Tony said straight away marching towards McGee, his face pinched with worry.

"No. Sophie is in Mexico and she has managed to get bugs in place but her camera work is awful." McGee said pointing towards the screen.

"When were these taken?" Tony asked as he looked at the screen.

"The satellite images were taken an hour ago. The audio and video from the bugs is being sent out in short bursts. We are about 15 minutes behind on whatever is happening down there and all things considered, it's not a bad transmission time. Sam is getting on a plane in about an hour to follow her down to Mexico." McGee said as he scrolled through the various camera angles that Sophie had managed to place.

"Thats great McGee but I really need to find Ziva." Tony said as he walked towards the door. Tony had no idea where Ziva had disappeared to and he still hadn't told her that Sophie had gone to Mexico. He went through the bullpen looking to see if she had come through here and spotting her bag, he breathed a sigh of relief. She was in the building somewhere. He took the elevator down to Abby's lab which was weirdly quiet even though the lights were on and he could see Abby through the door. He took a few steps into the lab and saw Ziva looking increasingly worried.

"Hey Ziva, I need to talk to you." He said walking straight over to her when Abby cleared her throat.

"What the hell, DiNozzo?" Abby said, her voiced laced with anger.

"You told her?" Tony said to Ziva who only managed a nod.

"I could hardly ask her to do a test like that then leave it, so yes, I told her." Ziva said as she watched the screen.

"We have been friends for almost fifteen years now and you didn't think to tell me something as big as this! This is a child that we are talking about! You kept a child secret from me!" Abby was now yelling. Tony inched away from her as Abby continued to build up her rant.

"Abby, I'm gonna cut you off there because there are more important things right now than what we told you and what we didn't." Tony said silencing Abby who looked shocked at his outburst.

"Where is Sophie?" Ziva said once she was able to get a word in edgeways.

"That's what I need to tell you. Her mission took her to Mexico. We have eyes on her via a satellite. I tried to call you but you switched your phone off." Tony said trying to keep his voice even. Ziva took a deep breath and looked away from him.

"She said to tell you goodbye if we didn't see her again. She also said thank you." Tony said to her and he watched as Ziva's body started to shake.

"The chances are that we will see her again though. She is okay at the moment." Tony attempted to reassure her.

"I didn't get to say goodbye. I didn't get to say goodbye." Ziva choked out as Abby started to furiously check her computer monitor. "I needed to say goodbye to her. What if…" Ziva trailed off as Tony pulled her into a hug. Abby pulled the window on her monitor up and felt a prickle of emotion as she watched her two coworkers console each other.

"Was this the agent you were working with?" Abby said as the dots joined up. Tony nodded as he looked at the screen. "It's a 100% match. She's a 100% match."


	20. Chapter 20

"You mean she is our daughter." Tony said as he looked at the monitor flashing 100% match.

"Yes. Now can you tell me who "she" is?" Abby said as she pulled the pair of them into her office.

Taking a deep breath, Tony told Abby the story of their daughter Sophie being born and taken away right up to the point of when Sophie the agent had come to stay with them.

"We can't tell you who Sophie works for but just that she is investigating the lead into the lieutenants death." Tony said finishing the story. He felt emotionally exaughsted and Ziva had hardly said a word since the beginning.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Abby said her voice gentler now than she had been before as she watched for Ziva's reaction.

"I was in pain and it wasn't something I was willing to inflict on others." Was all that Ziva said, her standard answer to this question.

"Who else knows?"

"You, Tony, and Gibbs know that I, we, have lost a daughter but nobody outside this room knows who Sophie is or rather how she is related to us." Ziva said her voice back under control.

"Well, at least you can stop wondering who she is now." Abby said sympathetically as she pried Ziva away from Tony to give her a hug. "What are you going to do?" Abby asked the pair of them once she released Ziva.

"I don't know. I needed to know but I don't know what to do now." Ziva said as she rested her head in her hands. Tony had started to stare out the window.

"Are you two finally going to get married then?" Abby said as a small smile started to form on her face. Even Ziva managed a smile at that but Tony stayed silent, his thoughts off in another world. What were they going to do? Fight to keep Sophie in America? How were they going to tell her? That thought had no sooner crossed his mind than another more chilling one had taken it's place.

"What if Sophie already knew this whole time?" Tony said quietly. "What are the odds of her being assigned to this mission out of all the missions that they had going?" He continued.

"Why would you say that? She said to us that she didn't know what happened to her parents." Ziva said trying to block out the idea that Sophie had known about them all along.

"No such thing as a coincidence and this is too much of one." Tony said as he stared at the people walking past. He remembered the way that Sophie had said goodbye. It had looked like genuine sadness that she wouldn't see them again and he wondered whether that could have been down to her realizing that it was the last time she would see her parents. But then at the same time, she seemed like she really didn't know what had happened to her parents. Maybe she just really liked them anyway? The thoughts swirled around his head like a fast approaching tornado coming closer to causing destruction.

"I don't believe that she knew all along and didn't tell us. I agree that it was too much of a coincidence and Sam Jones seemed to know a lot about us." Ziva said as she started to draw her own conclusions. "Sam could have known all along about who she was but not told her."

Sophie had been up on the roof almost the entire day but now the sun was lowing in the sky and it was starting to get a little chillier. After the heat of the day, this was a welcome change and with only another hour or so of work ahead of her, she was looking forward to coming down from the roof. She pulled the staple gun out and started to staple in some of the last pieces of tarp when she heard a pickup truck pull up to the compound front gate. At first she ignored it until she heard something that was unmistakably a gunshot. She crept over to the side of the warehouse roof and saw the pickup truck filled with armed men start gunning down the guards. These guys weren't police, she was sure of that and they started moving through the compound shooting at anything that moved. She dropped down keeping herself out of sight as she commando crawled across the roof. Nobody had shot at her so it was a good guess that they hadn't seen her. Even so, it was best not to take chances. She pulled her reinforced hoodie over the top of her head and moved to the most sheltered bit of the roof, you wouldn't be able to see her unless you had a birds eye view of the compound. With this many gunmen and no weapons, it would be stupid to engage them. She put her hands into her pocket and closed her hand around the last camera in her pocket. She quickly activated it and stuck it back into her pocket with the small head on the outside. That way, if NCIS were watching her then they would know where she is.

Back at MTAC, McGee was sitting back relaxed with a bag of popcorn. Watching Sophie put cameras in was interesting for the first few minutes but after a while, it grew to be boring. It wasn't even live action as the cameras would record for fifteen minutes then send it out in a massive burst. This meant that McGee was behind on all the cameras and he could only get satellite time once an hour for more pictures. All in all, he was essentially a peeping tom. McGee popped another piece of popcorn into his mouth when the new visual and audio came in. McGee checked the signals and saw that there was another camera on, McGee hoped it would be getting better images than the previous ones when he turned on the audio. The sound of gunfire was overwhelming and close and McGee dropped his popcorn on the floor as he watched gunmen systematically moving through the warehouse shooting everything up. He had his phone out of his pocket in less than a second calling Gibbs.

"Boss, gunmen are in the compound shooting up the place. I can't see Sophie anywhere, Boss, I can't see her." McGee said as he filed through the camera angles looking for any sign of the young agent. He flipped through them again and then he came onto the last angle where he could see the roof top and what looked like a pair of knees. He focused on that for a moment and realized they were probably Sophie's knees. She had stuck a camera on herself.

"I have an angle on her. She stuck the camera on herself." McGee said as the door to MTAC burst open and Tony and Ziva came in.

"What's happening?" Tony said straight away as the recording of the gunshots kept playing. "Is she okay?"

"I don't know. For the moment she is, I guess but we are fifteen minutes behind in every recording we get. A lot can happen in fifteen minutes but she has a camera on her." McGee said as he pulled up the image of Sophie's knees. The recording was still playing and there was no way to speed it up. Ziva breathed a sigh of relief as she watched her daughter sitting up on the roof. Her relief was cut short when Sophie was pulled to her feet and the recording looked like she was being dragged off the roof. The camera appeared to get caught on something and it fell onto the roof and stayed there just showing the sun setting in the background. Tony went white before he ran towards the garbage can and threw up. Ziva sank down to the floor feeling everything around her fall to pieces. Sophie had been taken by the gunmen.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: Warning! This chapter does contain allusions to torture! This also does contain some serious topics and a lot of reflection on certain characters.**

 **Unfortunately, I still don't own NCIS.**

 **Enjoy the Chapter! Reviews are very much appreciated!**

Sophie watched as the camera fell out of her pocket onto the rooftop, her last means of communication gone. A hand was clamped over her mouth as she was half dragged, half carried down off the rooftop, and her heart was beating a million times a minute. She had never been so scared in her life when she was dragged around the back of the warehouse.

"Hey, its me." Sophie almost threw up in relief. It was the pasty college student who had dragged her off the roof. He really didn't look as strong as he had just proved. He pulled her into what looked like a small shed that housed old sacks, wooden crates, and some gardening tools that had a suspiciously slimy layer on them. Together they hid behind some crates and stayed silent. Outside they could hear someone talking in Spanish, their voice gruff.

"Search the area and start loading up." Sophie translated in her head.

"All clear boss." Another deep voice said.

"Everyone taken care of?"

"No one will be talking." Sophie felt sick. They certainly didn't seem to be joking around about no witnesses. She could feel the pasty college student's breath getting shallow and jagged behind. The voices got fainter as the men outside moved away from the shed.

"I think they are going to load up the drugs." The pasty, college student whispered behind her.

"Yeah. How many bags did you guys get done?" Sophie whispered back as she settled her back against the shed wall.

"Almost sixty. You know the scene from "We're the Millers"? Hang on, you're a bit young for that? You're a bit young for all of this though, aren't you?" The college student carried on looking at her way more sceptically. "You're only what? Nine?" He questioned.

"I'm ten actually. And I have watched "We're the Millers". The scene where they load up the RV with weed?" she glared at college student.

"Yeah that one. About that much we managed to get done. Seriously though, what are you doing here?" He said as he settled back to sit next to her.

"Henderson said that he needed someone small. What are you doing here?" Sophie said quickly.

"You know how expensive college education is these days? Student loans only take you so far. Henderson said he would pay us $5000 each to do major jobs like this. I can't turn away that kind of money." Sophie stared open mouthed at him. He was putting his whole life in danger for $5000?

"Bet you wish you hadn't now." Sophie said quietly looking into the darkness of the shed that they were trapped in.

"Easy for you to say. Why are you down here for real?" The college student said.

"I wanted some extra money." Sophie said quietly keeping up with her undercover persona.

"So you risked your entire life for some money that you don't need? This isn't a joke. I have to do this! My dad was killed in Iraq and my mother had such severe depression from his death that she couldn't get a job. It's a fricken miracle I got through high school. I have been doing dealing to keep my mom and me afloat but you do it for kicks!" The college student said angrily to her. "If we get out of this alive, promise me you will stop. You probably have parents with stable jobs and that isn't something to take for granted. This isn't some hobby that you do for fun! Take up bungee jumping or paragliding or something safer! You don't have to do this, so don't!" The student said as he stared at the gardening tools covered in the slimy substance. Sophie felt speechless. She, of course, wasn't dealing drugs for the extra money but in all of her mission briefings that she had read or the background information, she hadn't realized that it wasn't really a choice to some. Sophie had always been a big believer in choices. It was fundamental to being an agent. You chose to undergo training. You chose to become an agent. You chose to take on missions. Sophie had made the choice to do all of those things because Unit J gave her the choice to do so. The guy next to her made out that he hadn't had the choice at all. She shook the thought from her head and listened outside for any sign that the guys were thinking about leaving. She strained her ears until she heard the same voices from earlier.

"The truck is full." She heard him say and the college student next to her perked up a little.

"How much is left in the warehouse?" The leader voice said.

"Another load for sure."

"We will come back in a few hours. Pedro, stay here and guard the rest. Everyone else with me. We will do a full search upon our return." The leader said and Sophie heard some grumbling as they climbed back into their trucks.

"We only have a few hours before they come back." Sophie said to the college student. "We should take out Pedro and leave here."

"Woah, kid. He has a gun and we don't have anything. We might be better off in here." The college student protested.

"You heard him, he will be doing a search when they get back. We are much better off taking our chances out there with one guy versus ten." Sophie argued as she picked up a spade covered in slime.

"I still think we should stay here." The guy said as Sophie slipped over to the door to look out. Pedro appeared to be on his phone with a small pistol in the waistband of his jeans. Sophie's main objective was to take him out, tie him up, contact Sam Jones and get the hell out of dodge. The trouble was that although she had the element of surprise, he was five times bigger than she was and although a portion of the fight comes down to skill, most of it relied on strength and this guy was massive with bulging muscles. If she could hit him with a temple blow hard and fast then she could get him down but if it turned into a real fight then she knew she would lose. The other option was to gain control of the gun and shoot him with it. Unit J agents are taught only to kill if their lives absolutely depended on it and since this was neither necessary or a defensive move, Sophie decided that plan A was probably better. She looked at the spade and in the dim light of the door, she realized that the slimy substance was in fact congealed blood. She gripped it tightly then sprinted out the door towards Pedro.

McGee had gone through all of the camera angles that Sophie had managed to get. The gunmen had killed everybody in the warehouse and then he had watched as they began to load up all the bags of drugs into the back of a truck. There was absolutely no sign of Sophie inside the warehouse but they had no footage of the outside of the warehouse. The satellite images would not be in for another hour or so so they wouldn't be able to see if her body was outside either. Ziva was sitting on the floor of MTAC now absolutely silent. Tony was next to her but he looked paler than Ziva. He guessed that if he had a child staying with him for any length of time, he would grow close to them to. Tony had looked really worried when Sophie had gone to Mexico but it was nothing compared to now.

"We have to go. We have to get down there." Tony said to himself more than anything but he didn't move away from Ziva who just stayed silent on the floor.

"Jones and Gibbs are already on a flight down there. I can get you on another one." McGee said as he flipped through the camera angles once more.

"Does Gibbs already know?" Tony said as he watched the bodies of the worker in the warehouse flip through once more.

"No. They were heading down there anyway but he will call once he lands for an update which should be in two hours." McGee said as he checked them time.

"Two hours till the people closest to her get there. Two hours before they can do anything? Two hours of her being subjected to…" It was the first thing Ziva had said and her voice was dangerously quiet.

"We can't get anyone there any faster, Ziva. Okay, your plane is booked. Military jet leaving in thirty minutes. You had better go." McGee said quickly as Tony pulled Ziva off the floor.

"We won't know anything then. We won't be here when the new images get in." Tony said looking pale again.

"No, but you can't do anything sitting here and waiting." McGee said as Tony and Ziva walked out of MTAC. Ziva could barely breathe. She had had her daughter for such a short time before she had been taken away. All she could think of now was the hundreds of ways that drug cartels liked to hurt people and how her daughter could become one of those people. If her daughter was dead, she hoped it was quick. As much as she didn't like to think of her daughter being shot in the head, it was better than the numerous other ways she could have been hurt. She focused on a Mossad technique that she was taught about remaining in control. It worked best if you were still but they only had a limited time to get to the airport so she had to make do. She imagined her breathing through the soles of her feet. Each step down she took was a breath out and each step she took up was a breath in. She followed the even number of breaths in to out through her steps down to where she had driven in earlier, Tony at her side. Once she was in the car, she emptied her head of the bigger picture. Focusing on the consequences didn't leave much room for action so she focused on the smaller steps: putting on her seatbelt, putting they key in the car, turning the key. Each step gave her something to focus on. She couldn't look at Tony at the moment. Right now she needed to focus on the action, not the emotion. Uncharacteristically, this new focused level of driving made her more careful and they made it to the airbase just in time. Together, she and Tony sprinted to the plane and managed to sit in adjacent jump seats on the plane before the door behind them was pulled up and they were on their way. During takeoff, she felt Tony's hand clench around her own and hold on for dear life. It felt good not to have to deal with this alone.

Tony clenched Ziva's hand determined not to let go. He had recognized the game face as they walked out of MTAC. This was the same face she had on when she was hunting Bodnar almost four years previously. It was the same one she had one when she held a gun to his chest seven years previously. Both faces were when Sophie had been waved in her face only to be snatched away again and he wondered just how strong she was to go through this so many times and still fight. He was falling to pieces having gone through this just once and here was Ziva doing it again for what must be the tenth time. He rubbed her hand almost subconsciously trying to bring about some comfort to Ziva, to remind her that he wasn't going anywhere and she wasn't fighting this alone. He hated it when she shut him out. He looked back to when Ziva had first told him about Sophie, a full six years after she was born. On the one hand, he had so happy to find out he had a daughter just at a point when he wasn't sure whether he ever would have kids, then angry that Ziva hadn't told him six years ago, then relieved to find out that she didn't just blindly hate him when she shut him out, upset that she had been in so much pain all these years whilst he had blindly thrown his emotions around the squad room like confetti revelling in his immaturity, she had been mourning the loss of their daughter. Then finally he felt the dread and frustration in knowing that she was missing. It had been the first time he had really understood happiness in ignorance and it was not a nice feeling but when he put everything together, he was enormously glad that she had finally found it within herself to tell him. It was the first time they had been on the same page for everything. It hadn't hit him all at once though. The first few nights had been tough and he had damn near walked out. The first night he had sat on the porch of that farmhouse in Israel unable to look at her. Like Abby had said, it was one hell of a MOAS. All he could feel was alone and rejected in her keeping this to herself. He had almost packed his stuff up and gone back to America sans Ziva. During the day they had tiptoed around each other so much that eventually Tony had snapped. He had yelled at her and accused her of a lot of things when she had finally pulled up her argument in defence saying that back when Sophie was born, he had been sleeping around so much that Ziva had had no faith in his ability to parent not to mention that her father had already taken away her daughter. She had also only been there a year and didn't want her reputation to be the agent who slept with her partner. It had been the longest yelling match that they had had. Ironically enough, it was in the midst of that argument that they had finally admitted their feelings for other.

 _"You had so many opportunities to tell me! I had watched you get dragged back to Israel over something that I did then get sent to be tortured!" Tony had yelled fuelled by anger._

 _"I lost my child Tony! Do you have any idea what that feels like in the slightest? I didn't tell you because I didn't want to hurt you!" Ziva had yelled back._

 _"Didn't want to hurt me!" Tony had said shocked that she would even use this as an argument. "You hurt me every time that you shut me out. Every time I think we are on the same page, you then disappear and try to do everything by yourself and I am left wondering whether you are ever going to let me in!"_

 _"Why do you even care?!" Ziva had yelled back._

 _"Because I love you, goddammit!" Tony yelled and stunned both of them into silence, of all the words he could have said it was the first time that Ziva had realized that maybe, just maybe, they would be able to get past this. "And I am tired of this being a one way relationship!" Tony finished as he stormed out onto the porch. Ziva's hopes went out in a puff of smoke as she watched Tony storm out into the olive orchard. She had sank down onto the porch outside and felt herself cry. She had honestly thought that by morning, she would be alone. Tony had found a tree to sit under wondering if she was going to come after him. He had seen this scene hundreds of times in movies where one of the storms off and the other comes begging for forgiveness but that wasn't Ziva. She was never one to beg and she sure as heck wasn't going to start now. From where he was, he could see her sitting on the porch with her head in her hands. He still wanted an apology for what she kept from him but one given now would just insult them both. Instead Tony sat outside in the warm summer evening. He watched as a couple of birds flew around a nest which had a small chick in it and felt absurdly jealous of the birds. Their life was simple, they could just get together and have babies and nothing could be simpler. In his life, he had loved absolutely for so long with having it thrown repeatedly in his face. She had seemed so shocked when his confession had come out that he wondered if she had seriously not known. He wasn't one for big words preferring to prove it. He had gone to Somalia for her, stayed that listening ear as she struggled with her relationship with Ray. He had been sorely tempted to send him running but he knew that if he truly loved her, he would let her go. He had been insanely angry when he hurt her but secretly happy that it had ended. Then in the elevator he had thought that they were on the same page only to have her go off on her own after her father's death. Even then, he had remained on her side throughout but now, he wasn't sure how much more he could take. It had been in that moment that he decided that he would only leave if she sent him. Part of his decision was to prove himself right but mostly, he knew he wouldn't forgive himself if he left her now. He vowed that he would understand her even if it killed him. He gave himself a mini pep talk before walking back towards the farmhouse and approaching her._

 _"Are you leaving?" Was the only thing Ziva said to him, her voice completely devoid of emotion._

 _"No, I am not leaving. I am not leaving until you decide to give up because it's not gonna be me that does. I know that you had your reasons and I vow to try to understand them even though I may never." Tony said quite forcefully more to himself than to her._

 _"Thank you." Ziva said quietly._

Tony smiled at the memory fondly. It would be another three weeks before she would say it back. It had been the time that they had decided no more secrets. The argument hadn't been about Sophie really but about them and Tony was 100% glad that they had had it. He remembered her reasoning for keeping Sophie a secret and now, stuck in the confines of this plane in the horrible unknown, he finally understood why she had done it. He wouldn't wish this upon his worst enemy.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N I don't know if this is a real pregnancy condition but I needed to have a reason for Ziva not showing and having Sophie born so early.**

The college student gripped the wheel of the pickup truck with Sophie sitting in the passenger seat as they raced out of the compound up into the mountains. During the scuffle that ensued after hitting Pedro over the head with the spade, his phone had smashed beyond repair leaving Sophie stranded without comms. She had tried to speak aloud where they were going in the hopes that the listening devices picked her up but the college student has shushed her the moment that Pedro hit the ground. The engine choked a few times as it started to climb the windy road up the mountain side.

"Shit." The college student said as the engine coughed again. "We are nearly out of gas. Shit." There were no gas stations anywhere near them and once the engine choked out, they would have to go on foot through drug cartel territory with no weapons. The college student pressed on the gas again and they continued up the road.

"What's your name by the way?" Sophie asked.

"Jason. Jason White." Jason said as the truck coughed again.

"I'm Sophie." Sophie said quietly as she looked out of the window.

"I know. Brady called your name when he wanted you to go up onto the roof. I can't believe they are all dead." Jason said as they reached the top of the hill. The view of the surrounding countryside was astonishing but Jason's voice was sad.

"Did you know any of them long?" Sophie asked as Jason stared ahead of them.

"Brody got me into all of this as a way to make money. He knew we were struggling and that I needed money. I don't know whether to thank him of beat him up." Sophie remembered the big black dude who had easily lifted her onto the roof of the warehouse.

"Brody seemed to know what he was doing." Sophie said as the trundled along the road.

"He did. Went ballistic when he thought someone had ratted us out to the cops. A kid like you's Dad, I think." Jason said conversationally. Sophie remembered the King case - the whole reason they were on this mission to begin with.

"What happened?" Sophie asked hoping she didn't sound to eager to know.

"The kid had her baggies in her backpack and apparently the Dad went through it. Of course Daddy dearest didn't take too kindly to his daughter drug dealing and confiscated the lot and was going to go to the cops. Kid phoned her dealer in fear. Brody loses his cool and tracks down the father. Father was in DC in a hotel which was way to close to the Navy Cop base. I think he was originally just going to scare him but Brody doesn't take kindly to snitches. Shot the guy in some convenience store somewhere. Told the kid not to worry about the cops. Next thing we know, kid is gone. We think that the mother took her away afterwards. Brody wasn't too worried. Guess it doesn't matter now." This was as good as any confession. She made a mental note to tell NCIS as soon as she could establish contact. She had a quick scan around her for any time of phone or radio device. She knew that Gibbs and Sam were following her down to Mexico as soon as they could establish where she was. The tracker stickers had been in her backpack and the last patch she had been wearing had died hours ago. She had no way to contact them and even if she did, she couldn't do it in front of Jason. Finally the engine on the truck coughed, spluttered then went silent as the truck ground to a halt.

"We have lost the engine. Gonna have to go on foot from here." Jason said as he got out of the truck. Sophie followed him out of the truck and looked doubtfully at the rocky slide that passed for a footpath. "You gonna be okay?" Jason asked her looking up and down Sophie's tiny frame. Sophie had done months of training up steeper cliffs than this but after almost two days of no sleep with the burning sun on her back, she didn't much fancy it but it was the only way they could go without any of the trucks following them. She nodded and together they started to follow the steep cliff path that took them around the edge of the mountain and away from the sight of the road. The only way anyone would be able to see them is if they had a helicopter and knew where to look. Sophie had grabbed the lone water bottle that had been left in the car but there was only a mouthful left in it. The burning sun above their heads made Sophie's mouth dry and coupled with her sleep deprivation made her want a cool shower before falling into her bed back on Campus. Jason yawned loudly and nearly missed a step which would have sent him falling down the mountain to certain death. From then on, they both watched where they were putting their feet a lot more carefully.

Tony and Ziva's plane had just touched down on the sad excuse for a runway and the pilot was taxiing the plane along to a safe spot where they could be unloaded onto the tarmac. They were going to catch up with Gibbs and Sam in a safe house close to where they suspected Sophie had gone. Ziva had her game face on so closely resembling the anger Tony had seen when she was hunting Bodner and he remembered how distant she had become then and hoped that no matter what happened, he wouldn't lose her again to her grief. He knew that he wouldn't be able to take this alone. He remembered the way the camera feed had shown her being dragged off the roof made all the worse with it being from her point of view and focused on how much they needed to find her. He pleaded with a god he hadn't spoken to in years, making deals, bargaining everything he had that she was safe and that the absence of her anywhere on the satellite photos were good news. He let Ziva drive and for once was glad of her crazy driving that got them to the safe house fast. Inside it was cramped and smelt suspiciously like mould but Sam Jones was there going through the various camera angles that McGee had managed to send them. There was still no sign of Sophie within the warehouse and the new satellite images showed a body that was too big to be Sophie's outside the warehouse that hadn't been there before.

"Still no Sophie?" Tony confirmed with Sam feeling simultaneously sick and relieved at the same time.

"Not that we can see. It means that there is no confirmation of death as we don't have a body so chances are she is still alive. Every other person in that warehouse was just killed and there bodies are showing up on the cameras." Sam said quietly as he flipped through again.

"Go back two." Gibbs said suddenly and Sam obliged and he pulled up a satellite image of outside of the warehouse now as opposed to before the shooting. "There was a truck there." He said pointing out an absence of truck.

"Wouldn't it be the shooters truck?" Tony said looking at the one from a few hours ago.

"No. It was there before the shooting. The shooters all left in one truck." Gibbs said in an authoritative voice.

"Can Sophie drive?" Ziva said voicing what they were all thinking.

"Yes, all agents have to be able to get away in an emergency situation. Her first priority would be to get herself to a safe place then call us." Sam said as he stared at the white truck before the shooting.

"We need to check out that compound." Gibbs said.

"Not without support, we aren't. These guys didn't just shoot up the place for nothing and they didn't take that much with them." Sam said as he flicked through the internal cameras showing there to be bags of drugs still there. "They will be back with reinforcements."

"Call in reinforcements. Storm the compound. If Sophie is still there then we will find her. If she isn't we will scour the mountainside." Gibbs said as he motioned to Tony to make the call.

Gibbs led the NCIS team and Sam around the warehouse as the armoured reinforcements surrounded the warehouse. They could tell over the audio that the gunmen had come back and that they were armed. Gibbs made a forward motion with his fingers and the whole force moved as one as they blasted into the warehouse. Almost immediately the shooting started with one a few bullets hitting the kevlar vests before they were taken out by the force. Mass bullets tore apart the gunmen and Ziva herself fired off half a dozen rounds whilst swearing in Hebrew angrily at the gunmen.

"Ziva, stop!" Tony yelled at her as she continued shooting the corpses. "Ziva! Stop it!" Tony yelled above the sound of her weapon firing. He yelled at her a few more times before her weapon clicked empty and she started towards the bullet torn body of the leader and started to kick him. Tony grabbed her and pulled her away from the body.

"Stop. You need to stop. Beating him up won't save Sophie!" Tony said as he held onto her as tightly as possible. Ziva stayed tense with the anger in her eyes rippling through her whole body. All she could think about was what they could have done to her. She shot at the body hoping that by some miracle it would stop her from having to see her newly discovered daughter's body.

"Search the warehouse." Gibbs barked. Tony led Ziva around the warehouse, blood pumping in his ears. Each body they laid out looked so young in death. A thirteen year old girl who had Sophie's small stature, a seventeen year old, her eyes wide in fear, a big black man whose arms had bullet holes in them from protecting his face. Each time they turned a body over to look at it, they hoped it wouldn't be her. It was a long few hours of moving the bodies inside the warehouse and then searching outside for her and the sun had long gone down plunging everywhere around them into darkness. Tony, Ziva, Gibbs, and Jones were back in their safe house after having established that Sophie was not anywhere in the compound which meant she had either escaped or she had been taken back to the gunmen's main base. Tony hoped she had escaped and that she was hidden from all her could possibly hurt her. Ziva sat with her back pressed against the wall hugging a pillow to her body. She hadn't felt this scared for Sophie's safety since the day she was born.

 _She hadn't expected her father to be pleased with her. She had gone back to Israel on a whim in the hope her Aunt Nettie would be able to offer some advice. She hadn't been showing and it scared her. She could feel her kick every so often but her stomach didn't bump out like a pregnant woman's is supposed to. Instead she felt breathless, sick, and needing to pee every few minutes. Gibbs had just retired leaving Tony as head of the team and although she had stayed with him for a movie night the night after, she had handed in her vacation request the next day. Tony had been slightly pissed at this and accused her of not thinking he was capable as a leader. She was hopelessly in love with him by this point and longed to tell him about her pregnancy but couldn't stand the idea of what he would think of her. Tony had been the king of no commitment then. Instead she had got on a plane and gone to visit her Aunt Nettie but instead was greeted by her father. Her father had been distant all her life and it was a sudden interest in her life that scared her._

 _"What is this?" Eli had bellowed pointing to the used pregnancy test kit she had used almost four months ago._

 _"You are having me followed?" Ziva had yelled back._

 _"A positive pregnancy test! You are pregnant are you not!" Her father had ignored her own question._

 _"I had an abortion." Ziva lied on a whim._

 _"No medical treatment histories anywhere. No visit to a family planning clinic. No doctors appointments. You did not get an abortion." Eli contradicted her._

 _"It is none of your business what I have had done." Ziva hissed angry at his blatant invasion of her privacy._

 _"As your employer and your boss, I have a right to know." He said and Ziva couldn't help but feel sad that he didn't even think to add daughter to that list._

 _"Fine. I am pregnant." Ziva had said feeling her energy drain away as the tightness in her chest grew._

 _"Who is the father?" Was Eli's next question. Ziva narrowed her eyes at him._

 _"Not relevant." Ziva had said realizing the new business tone her father had._

 _"It is very relevant. Officer Bashad says that the only man you have been with since your time in America was your American partner Anthony DiNozzo." Eli said as he examined the file he had on his daughter. Ziva knew that look. It was the look her father had when he had a plan._

 _"Does he know?"_

 _"No." Ziva get her lungs grew tight. She struggled to keep her composure. She would not show the pain she was in in front of the man who had spent her childhood not allowing her to show pain. Eli watcher her obvious discomfort before he grabbed his phone and barked words in Hebrew into it._

 _"You will have a sonogram. Then I will decide what to do with you." He said in his business tone. Within a few minutes an officer turned up to escort her to the hospital. Ziva had had one in the US in the early months of her pregnancy but had claimed it was down to flu. It showed an embryo developing normally but it had been too early to tell what it was. Now she was lying back, her stomach exposed. It looked a little rounder than a few months ago but that could be down to the change to her American diet. The sonographer squirted jelly onto her belly and moved the wand around a bit. As the foetal heartbeat filled the room, she wished Tony was in the room to hear it. He would probably make some movie reference and she would laugh. Instead it was just the sonographer looking increasingly worried._

 _"Have you been having any chest pain or pain in your abdomen?" She asked as she examined the screen. Ziva swallowed as she nodded. "I need to call the doctor in here." Ziva had then spent an uncomfortable couple of minutes worrying about what was going on inside her._

 _"Hello Ziva. I'm Doctor Keer." A woman in her mid forties walked into the room and shook her hand. Ziva was strongly reminded of her mother in her demeanour, no nonsense but compassionate. "You are 24 weeks along aren't you." Ziva did some mental calculations before answering yes. "Well the reason behind the chest pain and the lack of bump is because your daughter is caught in the wrong place. Normally, babies grow outwards creating a bump and for the length of time that you are along, you should be showing. However, your daughter has grown inwards and upwards. Every time she moves, her head gets caught behind your ribs and causes intense pain. She can't move out of the position and if she grows any more, she will break through your diaphragm and it will kill you. Have you been feeling increasingly sick?" Dr Keer asked as Ziva struggled to understand what was happening to her._

 _"Yes. Every time I breathe, it hurts my chest. I work in DC normally…" Ziva trailed off wondering how much Dr Keer knew about her._

 _"Your father mentioned it on the phone. I work for Mossad as well although it is rare for me to do pregnancies." Dr Keer said._

 _"What are you going to do about it?" Ziva asked._

 _"We can attempt to manipulate her out of your chest cavity but the skin on your body will struggle to keep up to form a baby bump. It is also seriously risky to you, any wrong movement your break your ribs or puncture your diaphragm. Our second option and the one I am inclined to go with is emergency C-section." Ziva felt sick imagining her daughter struggling to survive outside of her._

 _"She is too small." Ziva whispered cradling her hands on her stomach._

 _"The distress she is under has given her organs a head start. Babies can survive outside the womb at 24 weeks." Dr Keer comforted her as she wrote on her chart._

 _"Can I have a few days to decide?" Ziva asked as she struggled with the enormity of her decision._

 _"No. In the third trimester, they grow quickly. If she moves, it will puncture your diaphragm. I will need to know now." Dr Keer said as she dialled a number on the phone. She left the room and Ziva could hear the voices outside. How could she consent to her daughter being born this early? She was so small. Too small. Dr Keer was gone for less than a minute before she returned._

 _"Your father is on his way. He says you must go ahead with the C-Section." Dr Keer said quickly as she checked Ziva's vitals once more. This was too quick. She needed longer to decide. She needed to prepare. She thought she would have another few months. She remembered how her father never came to her for anything. He had missed almost every ceremony going including her. No dance recitals, no karate tournaments, even her induction in the IDF had only been attended by her siblings. But now she was in the hospital pregnant and her father was visiting now. She vainly hoped he was proud to become a grandfather but the more reasonable part of her knew it wasn't that. He considered her more of a weapon than a mother. She lay there for another half an hour before her father arrived at the hospital. Ziva crossed her arms over her chest over where she guessed her daughters head was._

 _"You must have the surgery. You will not die from this." Her father ordered her._

 _"Why are you here?" Ziva asked him wondering if she might get a straight answer for once._

 _"I have seen you every time you have been in hospital." Her father responded. This was true. He had been disappointed with her every time for allowing herself to get hurt. This time was no different._

 _"It needs to come out." He reiterated._

 _"She. The baby is a she not an it." Ziva corrected._

 _"Alright, she needs to come out."_

 _"Why do you even care?" Ziva said avoiding his orders._

 _"You will not die from childbirth. This is not the way I raised you." Eli said forcefully. Ziva could hardly believe her ears. Not the way he raised her? Ziva stared at the ceiling wondering what would happen if she allowed her daughter to be born. The chances are she wouldn't even survive a few minutes outside the womb. She held her chest hugging where she hoped her daughter was._

 _"These are your options Ziva. You will either have the C-Section this afternoon, and the child will have the best medical care possible to heighten its chances of survival or I will have Agent DiNozzo killed." Ziva stared at him shocked._

 _"You wouldn't." Ziva said in disbelief._

 _"I can and I will. You will follow orders." Eli said angrily._

 _"It would jeapodise American-Israeli relations for years and they could declare war on us." Ziva said shaking her head at him._

 _"There is more than one way to have your friend killed Ziva." He said emphasizing friend. He thrust the consent form at her. Ziva felt the tears in her eyes welling. He would kill Tony, she had no doubt of that._

 _"You will make sure that she will have medical care?" Ziva questioned pressing her hand against her abdomen._

 _"I will do that." Eli said holding the pen out to her. Ziva froze on the form. How could she sign her daughter to be ripped out of her? She signed it before she could change her mind. Her father took the form and handed it to one of the nurses._

 _"You will learn to follow order Ziva. I do not want to threaten your friends." Eli said._

 _"I should hand in my resignation to NCIS." Ziva said quietly._

 _"You will do nothing of the sort. It will take you a few days to recover from the operation then you will return to America." Her father said surprised at what she had said._

 _"I can't take her with me if she is in the NICU." Ziva argued._

 _"You won't be taking her with you." Eli said as if she was being stupid. "I promised the best medical care. I did not say you would raise her or see her. You will return to your friends in America and Ziva, if you should even think of telling your American friends about this, you will find Agent DiNozzo will not be around much longer." Ziva shook as the tears that had been threatening to fall all morning fell down her cheeks._

 _"You won't let me see her?" Ziva said her voice shaking._

 _"There is no need for you to."_

 _"She is my daughter." Ziva sobbed._

 _"If you follow my orders and do to question me again then I will allow you to see her. I am not completely heartless." Eli said as he left the room._

When the nurses came to take her to the operating room, she had let her face go hard. No emotion. She would not give her father the satisfaction of knowing he had hurt her. She had not cried when she was cut open not when her daughter was pulled out of her. The NICU team had descended and she had watched as they forced a tube down her throat to breathe for her. Her daughter could fit into the hand of the NICU consultant. Ziva hadn't cried once. She hadn't cried as they had sewn her up and her daughter was taken to the NICU. She hadn't cried when they took her back to her room and let her sleep. She hadn't cried when her father informed her that her daughter was still alive and was stable. She hadn't even cried when her father told her that they were both too sick to hold her. Her father had allowed her one thing and that was to name her. Ziva considered naming her after her sister but she couldn't do it in the face of her father. She just couldn't. Tali, the reason she had joined Mossad to seek revenge for her death would not be the reason for her wanting to quit. She glared at her father when she told him she was going to call her Sophie. She had no idea if her father would understand the reference but she needed to remember those days with Tony. She didn't cry when she left the hospital alone or when she arrived back in DC feeling oddly empty. Her Aunt provided her with phone calls with Sophie's progress and each milestone that Sophie reached made her day whilst Tony was simultaneously breaking her heart with every date he had with Jeanne.

Instead now she held her pillow wishing beyond hope that she could just hold Sophie and never let anyone threaten her into letting her go again.


	23. Chapter 23

Sophie and Jason had been wandering the mountainside looking for a stream or river for a few more hours, the water now long gone. Sophie's mouth felt dry and her attempt to moisten her lips was poor leaving them chapped. The heat burning down on them had become unbearable and Jason's usually pasty skin was now bright red and peeling. Sophie had been through worse in training but at least in training she had had the knowledge that the instructors weren't actually going to kill her but out here there was no such safety net and to top it all off, she hadn't slept since the night before she was called to go to Mexico almost three days ago. She and Jason staggered across the small pathway hoping that there would be a small stream of water coming down the mountain side or even just some shade. All she wanted now was to drink water and fall asleep, preferably in an air-conditioned room with a comfortable bed but right now she would take a five minute rest under a tree.

"Can you hear something?" Jason suddenly said interrupting her thoughts of air-conditioning. Sophie strained her ears until she pinpointed what it was that he meant.

"Trickling of water?" Sophie said almost certain that her ears were playing tricks on her.

"Yes, it must be close just around that bend." Jason said as he started to move faster. Together they picked up the pace and made their way around the mountain to where there was a small trickling waterfall falling down the edge of the cliff. Neither of them could believe their eyes as they watched the cool water fall down into a small pool that slowly drained down into another waterfall below them. Jason didn't hesitate and plunged his whole face into the pool taking huge long gulps of before Sophie could even question whether it was safe to drink. She placed the bottle into the waterfall and let it fill up.

"It's so good! Definitely water." Jason said as he came up for air panting with the exertion. Sophie nodded and took huge gulps from the bottle revelling in how cool it was. All they needed to do now was find some shade. Sophie also wanted to see if her tracker currently strapped to her thigh was still active but she couldn't very well do it in front of Jason.

"I'm just gonna go pee." Sophie muttered to Jason as she wandered away out of his sight. As soon as she was hidden from view, she pulled the tracker band aid off of her leg. The tiny green light that indicated whether the tracker was active was off and Sophie guessed it was because it had run out of juice. She hurled the useless bandaid off the side of the mountain with a scream of frustration. She had been relying on it to provide a location to NCIS and now it was gone and she had no idea how to contact them. The feeling of dread started to overtake her and the intrusive thoughts of what if they didn't find her started to come into her head. How long would she be able to last? A few more days or just a few more hours? They had found water at least but without shade during the day, heatstroke was inevitable. The air now was cooling as it started to get dark but up in the mountains in the dark, it would soon get very cold. Her t-shirt and jeans weren't going to be enough to keep her comfortably warm. Jason suddenly popped up looking concerned.

"I heard screaming. I thought you had fallen." Jason said by way of an explanation.

"I thought I saw something." Sophie lied.

"Oh. I think we should stay here for a bit longer. You know, just to catch our breath." Jason said wearily as they made their way back to the stream. Sophie took another drink of water secretly relieved that Jason wanted to do this. It's much harder to find a target on the move than if they were to just stay still. Sophie was now banking on NCIS following her movements since the tracker wore off and hoped that it hadn't been too long. The chances were that they weren't going to find her until the morning and attempting to do a search at night was going to be hard. She needed to find a way to get through the night. She was also hoping that they had access to a helicopter before the cartels did. The only way they could be found is through a helicopter search as they were pretty well hidden from the road.

"McGee, you have better have got something." Gibbs yelled into the phone. Ziva sat back still holding the pillow trying to control the urge to throw up as she listened to the muffled reply that McGee gave.

"What do you mean her tracker isn't active?" Gibbs yelled. "You have got her movements up until her tracker stopped working." Gibbs went quiet for a while as McGee blathered on over the phone about something.

"Tony, Ziva, McGee says that they were in a truck following the highway. Go search for it." Gibbs ordered and ZIva jumped up glad of something to do. She and Tony got in the car and drove to the compound in the hope that they could track the truck's movements. Tony drove up the side of the mountain following the mostly deserted highway. Every so often they would pass a pick up truck with gang members holding AK-47s riding in the back. After nearly an hour driving Tony suddenly slammed on the brake as they nearly collided with an old pick up truck. In the dark it had been hard to see as there were no lights on it and it appeared to be deserted.

"Do you think this could be it?" Tony said frozen to his seat wondering if he was about to find his daughter's body inside it.

"It sounds like the one Gibbs's described." Ziva replied and Tony softly chuckled. Gibbs hadn't given them much of a description.

"Only one way to find out." Tony said as he forced himself out of the car. The car wasn't locked and there appeared to be no keys anywhere on the inside. The truck was a tiny, beaten up mess of a truck and not something that a rich cartel would use. On the satellite images, it had shown expensive silver trucks being their main method of transportation not something like this.

"Why would a cartel abandon this truck here?" Tony said giving hope to Ziva. "There was no reason to do a switch as they weren't aware they had anyone tracking them. They would have used the main trucks or else just shot her."

"Which means that she escaped. She must have escaped." Her momentary relief was short before another pressing question took her. "Why did she abandon this truck?" Tony went quiet for a minute before he thought of his theory.

"Its a crap truck. Chances are it stopped working. She must have had to abandon it." Ziva nodded accepting his theory.

"We should drive up the road for a little bit longer incase she took the road. It's a good place to be found by us but also by the cartels who take this road everyday. I think she went down the mountain side." Ziva said as they went back to their car. "We need to do a helicopter search."

"Phone Gibbs. We can drive this road anyway to see if she took the road." Tony said as he started the car again.

Sophie scoured the mountainside around them looking for something to burn. There were a few gorse bushes that were dry from being sunbaked all day and would be easy to burn. There weren't any big logs that would keep a fire going all night but there was enough for a few hours at least. She gathered them up, ignoring the scratched on her arms and made her way back to Jason who was attempting to start a fire using two pieces of flint that he had found. Each attempt was pretty futile until Sophie snatched them and got got a fire going with a single strike. There was nothing to eat around them and Sophie didn't have a way to make a trap to catch any animals. Instead they settled on the ground and watched the fire burn. If all went well, hopefully NCIS would find them soon. Her stomach rumbled loudly and Jason laughed.

"You know, a year ago, I couldn't afford any food. Like nothing. I was surrounded by books that cost upwards of $200 and I couldn't afford food. I went to a $32000 a year school and I couldn't afford a 50c packet of Ramen. I went almost three days without food before a deal came up and I could afford food again. I went to a McDonalds and got a Big Mac and I vowed to myself that I would never take food for granted again." Jason said as he stared into the fire. "During those few days, I actually thought of going and confessing to the cops about the whole drug thing, not because of my conscience or anything but because in jail, at least I would get food. I would also get killed in prison but at least I would die on a full stomach." Jason softly laughed.

"What are you going to do with your degree?" Sophie asked as she stared at the soft flickering flame.

"Pharmacology." Sophie stifled a laugh. Jason managed a small smile. "I figured I would drug deal legally this time."

Tony and Ziva pulled their car back into the safe house feeling a little better. They hadn't found Sophie but they had found evidence of her escape and if she was on the mountainside then they would be able to find her by helicopter the next morning. It was now very late at night but Gibbs was still up drinking coffee like it was his lifeline and barking into the phone.

"Why have we got no satellite images of the area McGee? What do you mean it is blocked by the mountain?"

"Boss. We think she escaped and is on the mountain side." Tony announced weakly as he fell into a chair. He hadn't slept either but he wouldn't until they found their daughter. Ziva sank down next to him feeling just as tired but equally as determined. In the morning, they would find her. In the morning, the nightmare would be over. In the morning, they could go home.

Sophie had slept approximately ten minutes before Jason shook her awake again.

"We can't sleep. If you fall asleep then you could die from the cold. You have to stay awake." Sophie knew this already but when you have gone three days without sleep then the part of your brain that has rational reasoning is overruled by the part the screams for sleep. She started drumming her fingers on her body to try and keep herself awake and wondered how long she would have to stay awake before she could sleep. She had done this before during training where she had gone the same length of time without sleep but she had been forced to walk then. Here she was just sitting down which leant easily to sleep. It was a long night.


	24. Chapter 24

Tony and Ziva loaded up into the helicopter and the rotor blades started twirling above their heads. Sam Jones sat across from them holding a pair of binoculars and looking increasingly concerned. Gibbs sat next to Jones holding his coffee in a thermos flask. He signalled to pilot to take off and they rose above the compound and headed towards the mountains. If this were a sightseeing tour, it would have been one of the most beautiful things that Tony had ever seen but as this was a search and rescue flight, all Tony could feel was sick. They followed the highway up until they saw the truck from last night. At this the pilot swung the helicopter to the right and started to follow the mountain path.

"Keep you eyes peeled everyone." Gibbs ordered as he stared out the open door of the helicopter. The pilot slowed down to give everyone a chance to look as they looked across the mountainside.

Sophie sat next to the waterfall slowing drinking some water and trying not to focus on how the joints in her limbs appeared to have been replaced with blutac and how her head felt like someone had dropped a weight on it. The sun had risen now and the temperature had started to heat up. The cold from the night was replaced with the uncomfortable heat of the day. She had Jason were now on their 248th round of hangman played in the dust when she thought she could her the whom, whom, whom of rotor blades. She turned her head up and saw in the distance a helicopter coming towards them.

"I can see her." Sam suddenly said focusing on her binoculars. "She is with a young man in I guess his late teens next to a waterfall. She seems to be okay." Ziva grabbed the binoculars to see for herself as she focused on them. She almost laughed in relief as the feeling of dread dissipated. She was okay! She was okay. The helicopter started towards them as the pilot started looking for a place for them to land. As it was a steep mountainside, there was nowhere that was going to be safe for them to touch down.

"Sorry to say this guys but I can't see anywhere to land. You are going to have to drop a ladder." The pilot said over the intercom. Sam found the ladder under his seat and expertly attached it to the helicopter in a way that would allow them to climb up in.

The helicopter was really close now and as they weren't shooting at them, Sophie assumed it wasn't the cartels. Instead the tell tale sign of the US forces was printed on the side and a ladder was being let down the side.

"How do they know we were here?" Jason screamed over the top of the helicopter noise. "Nobody knew that we were here! It could be the cartels making us feel safe!" Jason yelled as he stopped her from going nearer to the helicopter. "It could be a trap."

"I know that it isn't Jason. I can't tell you how I know but I do know! Please, you have to trust me." She begged him as she went over to the ladder.

"How do you know? There was no way for them to know!" Jason yelled.

"You have to trust me. I can promise you that these people are trustworthy. Anyway, they can't just leave you here." Jason looked a little more convinced as is grip weakened.

"Okay. But after this you have to tell me how you know this is safe." Jason said as they both grabbed onto the ladder and started to climb up.

Sophie arrived at the top first and Ziva grabbed her and pulled her into the helicopter. She ended up sitting on Ziva's lap before Ziva thrust a water bottle at her. She gladly took it and started drinking before Gibbs pulled Jason up behind her.

"NCIS." Gibbs said flashing his badge and ID at the bewildered Jason who was pulled into a seat and handed some water. The pilot turned the helicopter around and started to make their way back towards the safe house. For the ride back, Sophie had to sit in a seat but Ziva didn't let go of her grip on her, terrified that this wasn't real and the second that she let go, Sophie would be gone again. Sophie sat on the other side of them and he pulled granola bars out to give to Sophie and Jason. Sophie devoured hers in three bites as she leaned into Ziva's side. Once they got back she could sleep. She was already looking forward to it. This move was not missed by Jason who looked at her quizzically as he saw Ziva's firm grip on Sophie. The return flight was much faster and less than twenty minutes later they landed back at the safe house. Gibbs bundled Jason off first and took him inside to be debriefed. Sam followed afterwards but was clearly waiting for Sophie and it took Ziva half a minute to realize that Sam was still Sophie's mission controller and he was concerned for her welfare after such a stint in danger. Tony followed next as Sophie jumped out the plane and started to walk towards the safe house, Ziva's arm still firmly around her. They made it inside and Sophie embraced the cool air and let it flow around her. Now all she could think of was getting some sleep and a shower. Ziva clearly had other ideas and pulled her into a hug which Sophie felt like she was never going to let go. Sophie vaguely wondered if NCIS agents received the same lecture that Unit J agents receive about not getting attached. It felt nice, even though all she wanted to do was sleep.

Ziva clung to her and wondered if she was ever going to be able to let go. She couldn't believe she was safe here right in front of her. She wondered if she finally had gone mad and dreamt the whole thing because she was so desperate for her. She felt real though, warm and soft in her arms. She heard Sophie yawn and wondered how long it must have been since she slept.

"You had us worried there, motek." Ziva said quietly. She felt Sophie nod. She managed to make herself make Sophie let go and led her upstairs towards the bathroom. Sophie was glad that Ziva had left her to shower on her own. She was now certain that Ziva knew something that she didn't and Ziva's reaction to her was starting to freak her out. They couldn't possibly have never worked with children before, Sophie thought to herself as she let the water wash away the sweat and grime of the last few days. Her shower was fairly short and now everything was starting to feel dull and she knew that she needed to sleep sooner rather than later. She found an unused toothbrush still in the packet and used it to clean her teeth. She borrowed Ziva's hairbrush and used it to run through her tangled mess of hair then she braced herself to leave the bathroom. There was nobody outside waiting for her like Sophie half expected. She made her way along the corridor until she came across a bedroom. There was nobody in there so Sophie figured she could get a few hours sleep. She wriggled under the covers and felt her eyes close.

Gibbs and Sam were supervising Jason who had fallen asleep as soon as they had gotten in. Gibbs had yet to receive a debrief from Sophie as to who he was or how they had escaped and decided that it could wait until they had both woken up meanwhile Tony and Ziva crept quietly into the room that Sophie was sleeping in just to check that it hadn't all been a dream.

"I can't believe she is here." Tony whispered quietly as they sank into the couch, the only other item of furniture in the room. Tony put his arm around Ziva and pulled her in close. Ziva leant into him completely relaxed as she felt Tony press a kiss to the side of her head.

"I feel like this nightmare might finally be over." She said quietly. "A decade of pain is finally at an end."

"We still need to tell her. She must think we are really strange." Tony mused as he looked over at their sleeping daughter. "I mean, I hugged her goodbye and then you didn't let go of her once she came in. She is probably really confused with everything."

"I know. I saw the college boy looking really confused when we came in. Wonder what lie Sam will spin now."

"I want to know whether Sam lied to us. I want to go confront him about it and demand to know what game he is playing." Tony said his voice getting louder as Ziva shushed him.

"Right now, we just need to be happy that Sophie is here now. I can't think about what happens next. I just can't. We tell Sophie when she wakes up but right now, she needs to sleep and so do we." Ziva said quietly as she snuggled into his side. Tony nodded. Right now, Sophie was asleep in one of the two beds in the house so they would both end up sleeping on the couch. His back was going to protest in the morning but right now, he didn't care. He had the love of his life right next to him finally at peace and their daughter was safe in bed opposite him.


	25. Chapter 25

The pillow felt so soft and cool on her skin. Sophie yawned and buried her face back into it as she rolled over. She promised herself that she would never take sleep for granted again. She had promised herself this countless times during training then again on exercises but here she was promising again that she would never take it for granted. The room was much lighter now with the sun streaming in through the small crack in the curtains but Sophie had enough to guess that she had slept a long time. She pressed her arms up against the wall revelling in the stretch of just waking up as the door in front of her opened and Tony's head popped round it.

"You awake?" Sophie nodded stifling a yawn. "You were out for the rest of the day and the night. It's morning now. We've probably got some toast floating around somewhere if you want it then we need to debrief." Tony said as he came into the room. Sophie pulled herself up into a sitting position and yawned again but nodded. She knew the importance of debrief, essentially it was an opportunity to talk about all the cool, action movie based stuff she had done. After a visit to the bathroom, Sophie emerged downstairs. The kitchen was so small that it could possibly have been a kitchen for ants therefore everyone else was congregated in the living room. Ziva sat on the couch with Sam opposite her sitting on a hard backed chair balancing a laptop on his knees. Gibbs sat sipping coffee leaning against the wall as Sophie crossed the room and sat next to Ziva on the couch.

"Are you ready for the debrief?" Sam asked her quietly as he pulled up a word document on his laptop.

"Do we have to do this now? Can't it wait?" Ziva interrupted before Sophie could say anything.

"Yes. I need to do this now. Otherwise I might forget some stuff later on." Sophie said as she nodded at Sam. She started telling Sam from the beginning about the plane. Ziva was stunned at how much detail she was able to remember, everything from the name of the airline that had flown them down to the exact airplane. She studied Sophie for a while making a note of how she clasped her hands and pursed her lips when she was trying to remember details. She remembered how Sophie had been all those years ago during those three weeks of bittersweet heaven. She had made the exact same face of concentration then albeit the story being a lot less interesting than it was now. Sam followed along typing up the details on his laptop as Sophie recounted the story. There was so little emotion behind it and given that all except from Jason and her had died in the shootout, she proceeded remarkably well. She talked for a while about what she suspected they were packaging up in the warehouse but paused when she reached the shootout.

"We hid in a shed. Jason and I. I thought they were going to find us any second." Sophie paused for a second and clasped her hands again. Ziva sat on her hands to resist the urge to wrap her arms around her and never let go. Sophie then recounted the conversation about the drugs that had transpired between the cartel members. She then talked about subduing the remaining cartel member and their escape.

"And then you found me." Sophie finished off. "Where is Jason?"

"Your young college friend is being escorted back up to DC where he has agreed to a plea deal in exchange for more information on the cartels. He knows a lot more about the running of them than he was letting on and he agreed to testify against Henderson therefore we could place him in the witness protection program. He won't do time." Tony said in answer to her question.

"I'm glad about that. He wasn't a bad person, not really." Sophie said quietly. "He was put in a situation where there wasn't an easy way out."

Tony nodded at that as he handed her some toast.

"He's got a long road ahead but after the trial, it's up to him. Anyway, Sophie, I have booked your flight back to campus." Sam said as he closed the laptop screen.

"Wait, what?" Ziva said suddenly looking a bit shocked.

"The mission here is finished, there is no reason to stay." Sam said looking a bit taken aback at Ziva's sharp tone.

"There is plenty of reason for her to stay." Ziva snapped.

"Agent David, Sophie was here for a mission. This isn't a holiday camp. She is an agent and as the mission has ended, it is time for her to return home." Sam said authoritatively.

"You can't just make her leave. We only just found her." Ziva argued. Sophie stared at the floor pretending she couldn't hear the conversation.

"I don't know how they train you at NCIS but you seem to have gotten far too attached." Sam snapped. Sophie chose this moment to make a quick exit from the room and went back upstairs. She liked Ziva and Tony but having the argument play out in the living room was a little to much.

"YOU CAN'T TAKE HER AWAY!" Sophie clambered onto the bed and vehemently wished she was somewhere else. She could hear Sam making a muffled response.

"She isn't yours, Agent David." Sophie heard Gibbs intervene as the shouting got more intense. She shoved her head under the pillow trying to block it out. She wanted to go home, back to campus. She missed her friends, her room, hell even Benjamin but she knew that if she went home she would miss this alternate life with Tony and Ziva. She would miss the random hugs and outright concern for her. She heard the yelling reach a crescendo then just as quickly everything went silent. It was as if someone had hit the mute button. Then she heard the voices starting up again. Things seemed calmer this time without the arguing so Sophie emerged from her room and sat at the top of the stairs where she could hear but they couldn't see her.

"Are you certain? We would have to run our own tests to be sure." Sam said his voice still sharp.

"Our forensic scientist is rarely wrong and she wouldn't lie about something like this." Tony interrupted sounding just as sharp. Sophie winced as she had never heard than tone of voice coming from him before.

"As a mission controller, I don't see the full file regarding an agent's previous life but only their Unit J career and the very basics." Sam sounded defensive. Sophie did recognize this voice but it was usually used with uncooperative agencies. And anyway, what tests had they done on her and why would their forensic specialist lie about something and what did Sam not know? Of course, she could go downstairs and ask but despite everything Unit J stood for, adults do tend to keep secrets from kids. Sophie leaned in a little closer.

"Sophie mentioned that she was accepted into Unit J as a favour." Ziva said quietly.

"She was, that much I do know. She was accepted in almost three years before the minimum recruiting age. We only accept kids that age if they have an older sibling coming in with them which Sophie didn't. Her grandfather was Unit J alumni. He served back during the Second World War I believe. Back then he was known as David Eliyyahu. His story is quite famous at Unit J. We were founded during the second world war to fight against the Nazis and some of the first agents were jewish children smuggled out of Nazi Germany. David, as we knew him then, was among them. After the war, he went out and fought in the liberation of Israel. He changed his name and we never heard from him again until Sophie. He contacted us using his Unit J name and asked us to receive Sophie claiming that her mother was dead. We couldn't very well say no especially to that man." Sam said and Sophie heard him sink down into the chair. She had heard this all before so she wasn't surprised by that.

"His name was changed to Eli David. He was the director of Mossad, Israeli Intelligence." Ziva said. Sophie shook that that. How did she know what had happened to her grandfather?

"He had three children only one of which is alive today. My sister was killed in a Hamas bombing and my brother… was shot." Ziva continued. Sophie tried not to gasp as the realization hit her like a bullet.

During her Level One training, one of the obstacles she had had to face was swimming across a river in the middle of winter. When the cold had first hit her, everything in her had frozen and all she could focus on was how her skin was burning. That was what that realization felt like, like everything had frozen. Ziva was her mother. The very same mother that had given birth to her and everything. That thought kept on reeling around her head making everything feel like she was surrounded by a massive crowd all screaming the same thing: Ziva is your mother. She barely noticed when Tony came into the hallway suddenly and rushed towards her. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't remember how. Ziva was her mother. Tony shook her and Sophie could barely notice it. All her life she had believed that her mother was dead or didn't want her and her she was just sitting in front of her. Ziva was her mother. She felt the world around her start to sway and herself start to fall forwards. Ziva was her mother. She didn't even put her hands out to save herself as Tony made her lie down. Ziva was her mother. The world faded to black with the realization screaming around her. Ziva was her mother.


	26. Chapter 26

Tony could see Sophie completely frozen at the top of the staircase, her face ashen. He didn't know how much she had overheard but judging by her face, she had heard enough. He rushed up towards her as he watched her body start to tip forwards. He caught her as she started to fall down the staircase and laid her down at the top as he tried his best to wake her up.

"Sophie, can you hear me?" Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ziva come rushing up the staircase.

"She overheard." Tony said as he continued to try to wake her up.

"How much did she hear?" Sam said emerging from the room as well.

"Enough to make her panic enough to pass out." Tony said angry at the obvious question. He fanned her face as Sophie's eyes flickered a few times.

"She's coming back round." He said, the relief evident in his voice.

"You feeling okay?" He asked her as Sophie woke up. She closed her eyes again as she nodded.

"Had us scared there for a moment." Tony said as he helped her to sit up against a wall. Sophie didn't reply as she hugged her knees. She didn't want to believe that this was happening. How could her mother be here? Did she not want her back then?

"Why was I picked for this mission?" Sophie suddenly asked, her gaze resting solely on Sam.

"We needed someone young enough to be friends with Kendra but experienced enough to work independently for long periods of time. You were the only one to fit the bill. I didn't know who Tony and Ziva was before hand, I promise you that. We would have scrubbed the mission if we had known." Sam said quietly.

"Why would you have scrubbed it?" Ziva said looking defensive.

"And risk Sophie finding out in a high stress situation that would have put her in immeasurable danger had she been distracted? We would have told you on campus." Sam said looking at Ziva with complete confusion. "I can promise you, I would have not had you find out this way." Sam said to Sophie who nodded quietly.

"What's going to happen to me now?" Sophie asked looking at her knees. She couldn't look at Ziva. Ziva had never wanted to hug her more than now but Sophie was edging slowly away from her.

"We are going to fly back to Campus. Give you some time to think everything through. In the end, it's ultimately up to you. We can talk through some various options on Campus." Sam said to her as Sophie nodded again. "She will be going back to Campus and you can hardly expect her to make such a big decision less than five minutes after she found out." Sam snapped at Ziva who had opened her mouth in protest to Sam's idea.

"When is the flight?" Sophie asked.

"In a few hours. C130 out of Mexico and then commercial back home." Sam said as Tony came back up the staircase with a glass of water. Sophie took the glass and slowly sipped it trying to keep the thoughts in her head at bay. She couldn't look at Ziva. She didn't want to believe that the woman who had been so kind to her the past few weeks was the same woman who had abandoned her to be left at Unit J. Instead she stared at her knees. They were scratched from the desert with a couple of nasty looking scabs over her left knee. She started scratching at one of the scabs until it came off causing a new wave of bleeding. She heard someone sigh and pull themselves up. The blood started to drip down her legs and Sophie made no effort to stop it. Ziva went to the bathroom pulling a few tissues out of the box and returned to where Sophie was sitting. The fresh blood was now running down her leg and into her socks. She pressed a few of the tissues against the source of the blood and used the rest to mop up the blood on her legs. Sophie made no attempt to help her but didn't stop her either. In fact, Ziva received no response from Sophie until she looked up and saw tears running down Sophie's face and her sniffing as she tried to stop them. Instinctively, she reached forward to pull her into a hug when she caught Tony's expression. He shook his head at her and indicated that they should talk somewhere privately.

"Why won't you let me hug her?" Ziva angrily whispered as they went into a bedroom.

"Because, Ziva, she has only just found out that the person she thought was either dead or didn't want her has been alive this whole time. She doesn't know what to feel. Imagine if you found out that your mother didn't die but was somewhere on the other side of the world living her life and that she left you with your father then suddenly decided she wanted to be a part of your life again. I know that if my mother did that then I would be pretty confused and upset as well." Tony explained as he rubbed his eyes in exhaustion.

"I didn't choose to let her go. It wasn't my choice. I wanted her and I certainly didn't abandon her." Ziva said coldly.

"I know that. Believe me Ziva, I know that better than anyone but I doubt that she does. We need to talk to her properly and explain what happened." Tony said quietly.

"Less than 24 hours ago we had no idea where she was. She could have died out there. She could have died." Ziva said trying to control her voice and prevent it from breaking. She looked across to where Tony was facing the window. She could have sworn she saw his shoulders shake and instinctively crossed the room to comfort him.

"I know. I have been scared before. When I thought you were dead in Somalia, it felt like the world was ending but I was the only one experiencing it and everyone else seemed to go on as before. But this time, this time was a thousand times worse. I don't know how you coped. I thought I knew but I never came close to knowing what you went through and I am so sorry about that." Tony finished as he wrapped his arms around Ziva and buried is face into her hair, hoping that he would be able to control the tears that were falling down his face. They stayed like that for several minutes until finally Ziva pulled away.

"We need to go talk to her properly. She needs to understand." Ziva said as she led them both outside to where they had left Sophie except that Sophie wasn't sitting there. ZIva felt momentary terror until she heard a faint British accent coming from downstairs.

"I don't get it. Why did I go to Unit J if she wanted me all this time? I thought she was dead and instead she was here all this time." Sophie appeared to be talking to Sam.

"I don't know either Sophie. Your grandfather was a hero when he was at Unit J as you know, goodness knows how long you must have spend studying his achievements but I would guess that he has changed a lot since leaving." Sam replied as there was banging and clashing around the kitchen.

"If he was so amazing then why did he lie to Unit J about Ziva being dead?" Sophie muttered.

"He was amazing in that he helped shorten the war against the Nazis, but being so great as to help fight in a war, does not guarantee that you are faultless as a person. He made a great many sacrifices as an agent and if he continued to fight in the liberation of Israel then I would not have put it past him to make more sacrifices." Sam responded.

"And I was one of them." Sophie added.

"My father was not well known to be particularly caring towards his family. He spent his life fighting in one war or another." Ziva said as she entered the kitchen, Tony following her. Sophie went quiet again. "You need to understand why you ended up at Unit J but first and foremost you need to know that it was not my choice." Ziva looked at Sophie who was now staring at her mug of tea. "Please look at me Sophie." Ziva continued as Sophie brought her gaze up to look at her. "I loved you more than you can possibly ever imagine and then you were taken away." Ziva said as grasped Sophie's hands and this time Sophie didn't pull away. Ziva took a deep breath before continuing in her explanation.

"My father changed his name to Eli David and then went on to fight in the liberation of Israel. He became a member of Israeli Intelligence more commonly known as Mossad and due to, I am guessing, his MI5 training, he rose up through the ranks pretty quickly. He was well known for his forward thinking, seizing every opportunity to make himself more powerful and I mean every opportunity. My brother was part of a plot to create a mole at Mossad and terror groups. His conception was planned that way and it worked exceptionally well until it turned against him and my father ordered my brother's death. That is the basis of the kind of person my father was. He ordered his own child's death." Ziva paused in her story and Tony hoped that she wouldn't go into details of who killed her brother. Sophie didn't need to hear that.

"He trained me to become…" Ziva trailed off as Sophie stared at her.

"A spy." Tony interrupted exchanging a look with Ziva.

"I'm a spy." Sophie said questioningly. "Why is that a bad thing?"

"The kind of spy that I was meant that I didn't help people. I did a lot of things that no MI5 agent would be asked to do. One day I am sure you will find out the sort of things that I did but I won't go into them. I took the assignment at NCIS to get away from my father. I needed a break from what I was doing for Mossad. You were born in my first year at NCIS. The pregnancy nearly killed both of us because of where you were inside me and you were born so early. Do you know how long a normal pregnancy is supposed to last?" Ziva asked her.

"Nine months." Sophie replied quietly.

"You were born at six months. You couldn't breathe on your own for a long time, you were small enough to fit in the palm of my hand." Ziva said as Sophie looked at Ziva's hand. "My father had discovered the pregnancy and my theory is that he knew my loyalty was fading to Mossad and he needed something to stop me from jumping boat altogether. He made sure to keep you alive and you had the best medical care that Israel has to offer but I was not allowed to see you. I tried so many times. I was put on a plane back to America as soon as I had healed enough to go back. I snuck back to Israel as much as I could but my visits were restricted so much. I had plans with a colleague at Mossad to sneak you into America and out of my father's grip. You had just turned three when he betrayed me to my father and my father forced me to stay in Israel." Tony didn't miss how she left the most important part of him shooting her colleague dead out.

"We got a few weeks together of less restricted visits. I thought that me staying in Israel and giving up NCIS and everyone there would mean we would get more time together. And for a short while we did. The day that you were taken away, we spent the whole day on the beach in Haifa. You fell asleep on the way back and I remember just being able to hold you for a while and thinking about how I wanted that moment to go on forever. Then my father's men came and dragged you away. I never saw you again until the start of the mission here." Ziva trailed away as she looked away from Sophie.

"I don't remember that bit." Sophie said quietly. "I thought you didn't want me anymore or that you died. i hoped you had died." she whispered looking horrified at herself.

"I know." Tony said sitting down next to her. "It is better than being abandoned if it wasn't their choice to leave you."

"My father took you away and made sure that I would never see you again. He sent me away to my death. I was sent away on a mission that had a 98% chance of me dying. It was down to NCIS that I survived that. I came home but having no idea where you were, it was not quite the homecoming that everyone wanted it to be. My father had sent me away to my death and with me dead or at NCIS no longer working for him… there was no further reason to keep you alive. It was awful." Ziva said as she studied the table. diva nearly started crying again when she felt a warm weight settle against her and she pulled Sophie into her lap for a hug. It meant more to her than Sophie would ever know to have Sophie as the one initiating the hug. She held onto her tightly and like she had done years ago, hoped that the moment would never end.


	27. Chapter 27

Sophie sat in Ziva's lap with one last question burning around her head. Who was her father? She would like to have believed that she was the product of some romantic story Romeo and Juliet style but she could guess that that probably wasn't the case. Ziva was now leaning on her head and Sophie was pressed into her collar bone. Over the top of her shoulder she could see Tony and realized that Tony in all likelihood was her father as well. She wondered whether she could ask about their relationship why they weren't married. But when she opened her mouth to ask no words came out. Instead she closed it and went back to thinking about what she should do. Sam had already said that she needed to go back to Campus and get some space so maybe then that would help her to decide. She missed her friends on Campus and realized in that moment how much she just wanted to go home but at the same time, she would really miss Tony and Ziva.

"Flight is leaving soon. We need to get going." Sam interrupted jerking Sophie from her thoughts. Ziva very slowly released her and let her back onto the ground. Sophie felt strangely cold and half wished she could crawl back into Ziva's arms. She banished the thought from her head and followed Sam out of the safe house towards the helicopter waiting to take them to the airport. They couldn't risk being found by the cartels after all. Gibbs who had been really quiet throughout all the reveals sat up near the front of the helicopter and Sophie couldn't help but wonder if he had known about her all along. How many agents at NCIS had known? And if they did then couldn't the US government have stopped Eli David from taking her away? Surely someone would have had the power to step in? Ziva was still holding onto her as she sat down into a seat, with Tony sitting on the other side of Sophie sandwiching her in between the two of them. The move was not missed by Sam who followed them into the helicopter. The flight to the airbase was short and they ended up on the C130 less than an hour after leaving the safe house.

He breath curled up in front of her as she stepped into the gigantic space which also held a couple of armoured vehicles and a taken apart chinook helicopter. Due to the mass amount of cargo on the plane, the three NCIS agents, Sam, and Sophie were the only passengers on that plane. Sophie shivered and wished she had brought some more clothes as she sat down in the uncomfortable jump seat. Tony handed her a pair of earplugs and a blanket.

"It will get very loud in here after take off." He explained over the sound of the jets starting up. Sophie took the earplugs and stuffed them into her ear and tucked the blanket around herself. She felt a little warmer but not by much and shivered again at the prospect of it getting colder once they took off. This time, she was sitting in between Ziva and a large rotor blade from the chinook helicopter with Tony on the other side of Ziva. He whispered something that Sophie couldn't quite hear over the noise to Ziva who smiled and said something back before they both plugged their earplugs in. Gibbs and Sam sat on the other side of the plane looking like they were probably going to sleep the whole flight. The noise then got deafeningly loud as the plane started to taxi along the run way. The plane sped up quite quickly throwing Sophie against Ziva who held her into her seat as the plane juddered upwards into the sky.

Sophie had flown on a couple of different airplanes before but the loud C130 was definitely the worst she had experienced. Due to the size of the plane, they hit turbulence every few minutes giving the impression that they were going to crash whilst all the while throwing them around the place. It was like flying in a high speed washing machine. As Sophie struggled to stay in her seat, she watched in amazement at Agent Gibbs and her mission controller sleeping peacefully across from her. Neither seemed fazed by the extreme turbulence or the impression that they were crashing. The whole plane jerked as Sophie was tossed out of her seat onto the floor and she fell a few feet before Tony grabbed her and pulled her so that she was sitting in between Tony and Ziva again. They both shifted to accommodate her in between them and rearranged their blankets so that there was no way that Sophie could fall out again. From her new position, it was a lot more comfortable and warmer but she still felt a momentary panic every time they hit turbulence. The glowing numbers on Tony's watch seemed to be mocking Sophie as time went by so slowly. She knew that in a plane this size it would take several hours to reach DC and the jerking of the plane meant that she couldn't relax. She clenched her fists under the blanket in an attempt to control the panic that was rising inside her. She wanted this flight to stop so much. On the last jerk she felt so sick with fear that she pressed her face into Tony's side in the hope that neither of them would realize how much she hated this flight. Tony didn't flinch away from her but rather pulled her into his lap properly and held onto her in the hope that she would calm down. He had never seen her this scared before even though she had flown in an airplane before. He wondered whether it had something to do with their impending separation or whether she was genuinely scared the flight. He subconsciously rubbed her back as he debated the cause of Sophie's sudden fear when he felt her relax a little bit. She was still hiding her face from them but she didn't look like she was going to start crying so he just held onto her. Ziva shuffled closer to him as she rested her head onto his shoulder and Tony couldn't help but wonder how Ziva felt about Sophie going to him first. He wasn't unaware of the fact that Ziva was usually the more affectionate one of the two of them so it would make perfect sense for Sophie to pick her over him but she hadn't. He used his other arm to hug Ziva as well and together the three of them huddled together in what felt like a proper family hug. It was a while before Sophie turned her head to face them. Tony noted that she seemed more relaxed than she had done in a while although when the plane jerked again she shut her eyes tightly and seemed to hold to both of them as though she was scared of being pulled out of their grasp. They stayed like that until the plane finally touched down at the airbase in DC. When the doors were opened Sophie seemed to leap out of his arms as she beelined for the door and Tony couldn't help but feel a little rejected as she practically ran outside.

Sam caught sight of Tony's fallen expression and headed over towards him.

"She has been independent almost her entire life. She is probably feeling embarrassed at needing to be held on the flight. It's nothing personal against you or Ziva. She will probably pretend it never happened." Sam explained as Sophie walked in front of them.

"Is it always going to be like this? The retreating back as soon as we show her any kind of parental love?" Tony asked feeling like he was going back to the years when he and Ziva would push and pull in their relationship but seeing it with his daughter was so much worse.

"She might for a while. She is confused. Remember, until yesterday she didn't have parents so don't demand that kind of relationship from her. She isn't ready for it." Sam warned Tony. Tony felt like punching him in frustration. Sam seemed to know her so much better than he did and Sophie was his daughter not Sam's.

"Are we getting the jet home now or is there a waiting time?" Sophie turned and asked Sam almost completely ignoring Tony. Tony felt a pang at the word home in the sentence reminding him that America was not her home even though that was where her family was.

"The jet home is a commercial one which takes off this evening. It is 10:30 in the morning now so we have a few hours to kill. I understand that Agent McGee took your backpack from the Hayes house once he knew that you were going home." Sam turned to Gibbs who nodded.

"It's at my house. You still can't go to the Navy Yard as this was a classified mission although Abby now knows about Sophie." Gibbs said as they all piled into the back of the car. The drive to Gibbs's house was uneventful and when they finally pulled up Sophie was reminded of the first time she arrived there a few months before. The house was remarkably warm compared to the last time she had been there. She walked through the door and spotted her hastily packed backpack on the floor next to the couch. She felt like she had just gone to visit a grandparent with the state of the decor around. She picked up her backpack and ran up the staircase to where her room had been last time and threw herself on the bed. She didn't really want to talk to Tony or Ziva when she would have to say goodbye to them in a few hours anyway. With another long flight ahead of her she wondered if she would get the chance for a nap before she went to the airport with Sam. He was right about needing to think this all through. Right now, she didn't know what to do. She hugged the pillow other chest and stared up at the ceiling. She didn't know how long she stared at the ceiling for but it soon became apparent that someone was outside the door or rather someones. They appeared to be whispering quite frantically until there was a knock on the door and Ziva popped her head round. Sophie continued to stare at the ceiling. She half wanted her to come in but at the same time wanted her to leave so that she could pretend that she didn't have parents so she wouldn't have to make a choice. Ziva came into the room and lay down on the bed next to her so that they were both staring at the ceiling. In the tiny twin bed, Sophie ended up completely pressed up against her side which felt simultaneously comforting and weird.

"Did you know that today is your birthday?" Ziva asked her and Sophie felt her breath catch in her throat. She shook her head. Unit J had always had to guess her birthday and they celebrated it a month from now.

"Happy eleventh birthday, motek." Ziva whispered in her ear as Sophie hugged her for what felt the millionth time today.

"Is Tony my father?" Sophie asked quietly just wanting to be sure.

"Yes. He is." Ziva replied.

"Is that why you said things were complicated between you two? Did I do that?" Sophie asked in a small voice.

"Yes and no. Your father did not know that you existed until a few years ago. Nobody at NCIS knew. Our relationship has always been complicated due to a million different reasons. Our boss, Gibbs, had a rule. Rule twelve which is never date a coworker." Ziva said as she felt Sophie next to her erupt into giggles.

"You can laugh but we took it very seriously back then. I didn't tell your father because I didn't want to hurt him. I didn't tell anyone at NCIS either." Ziva said as she looked down at her daughter's face.

"So when did you decide to break the rules?" Sophie asked as she turned her body so she could face her mother.

"We were close for a long time. He was - and still is my best friend for years before we got together." The irony was not lost on her that she was attempting to describe her love life with her now eleven year old daughter. "I went to Israel in a last ditch attempt to find you which is when I finally told him about you. I suppose that is when we got together. It was also after my father died. I felt like maybe without him hiding you, I would be able to find you. Of course I didn't." She said quietly.

"You found me now." Sophie said to her.

"You found us. You walked through the door to us remember?"

"No, you guessed it was me. I had no idea. I would have gone back to Campus and I would never have known." Sophie said. "Why aren't you and Tony married then?"

"It's a long story as to why and believe me if it were up to him then we would have been married a long time ago." Ziva said quietly. "Anyway, I came up here to tell you that our coworker is coming here today. Her name is Abby and she is the forensic scientist who did the DNA test on you. She is probably going to marvel at your existence and she is a hugger." Sophie cringed at the idea of being randomly hugged by someone who she didn't know. She had just got her head around Ziva and Tony's hugs. They both jumped at the sound of a door closing downstairs. Ziva forced herself to let go of her daughter and get them both up. Sophie yawned tiredly as she accepted Ziva's offer to help her up. There was an excited scream from downstairs as Abby caught sight of Sophie for the first time. Sophie's first impression of Abby was that this was a girl who had been thrown head first into a tattoo parlour then jumped into a black puddle before emerging with a great big smile on her face. She rushed up the staircase which Sophie thought was kind of impressive given that those were 6 inch platform heels and grabbed hold of her. Sophie resisted the urge to squirm free and run back into the bedroom. She reminded herself that this woman would not hurt her and that she was just excited to meet her. Out of the corner of her eye she watched both of her parents exchange worried glances as Abby held onto her quite tightly and talked a mile a minute.

"I couldn't believe you even existed, well obviously I knew that you did because Ziva brought the DNA down to the lab so you had to have existed or otherwise Tony and Ziva have some sort of crazy lab where they combine DNA without actually creating humans. You look so much like ZIva apart from the eyes which look so much like Tony's don't you think?" Abby spoke quickly barely leaving a gap for a breath whilst holding Sophie to her chest. She suddenly held Sophie at arms length whilst she examined her. "Your hair is so cute!" With this she tousled her hair and Sophie felt like a dog that Abby had seen. "This is so exciting! Tony and Ziva are parents which makes you the first team baby even though we all met Victoria first but you were still the first team baby." Abby finally seemed to be slowing down a little bit. Sophie was starting to feel lightheaded at what Abby was saying. She knew it was all true but having someone starting to talk about it was becoming too much. She took a couple of deep breaths to steady herself.

"You are staying right? I know you were a part of some british agency but doesn't that all change now that you have your parents? You are going to love DC so much and do stuff with all of us on the weekends like the bowling team with the nuns and Habitat for Humanity…" Abby was talking again and Sophie felt her stomach starting to tighten and her throat closing. She didn't want to think about this right now. Whilst Abby went off on a tangent about her various weekend activities, Ziva noticed that Sophie appeared to be looking at the floor again.

"Abby!" Tony and Ziva said at the same time. Sophie scuffed her shoes against the carpet hoping that this Abby person would stop talking.

"What?" Abby said completely oblivious to Sophie's discomfort.

"She hasn't made a decision about what is going to happen yet and she doesn't need to for a while. She flies home tonight." Tony said to Abby in an undertone.

"What decision is there to make? She has you guys so why wouldn't you pick family over work?" Abby said now looking at Sophie who continued to stare at the ground.

"Because she found out yesterday! She has a whole life in the UK as well and as you may recall Abby, you work 16 hour days every day so don't you dare lecture her on family over work!" Ziva snapped.

"I didn't mean to sound…" Abby backtracked quickly.

"Well you did!" Ziva snapped back. Sophie turned around and went back to her room. She was tired of everyone wanting a decision from her right now. Abby was just the one voicing it. Ziva may have defended her to Abby but she knew that Ziva wanted her to stay and would probably never forgive her if she never saw them again. The thought of never seeing them again caused Sophie to let out a sob that she tried to hide. She buried herself under the covers and hid herself under a pillow. Maybe if she stayed down here long enough she wouldn't have to make any decision. She wanted to go home away from everyone wanting something from her but she wanted this other life as well.

The trip to the airport was done in complete silence. Gibbs had stopped Tony and Ziva from riding with them saying that they would thank him later when they didn't embarrass themselves. Sophie had said goodbye at the house in the form of a group hug where she was pretty sure that neither of them would let go of her. She had then ran to the car so that they wouldn't see her cry. As they had driven off Sophie had seen Tony prevent Ziva from running after them and Sophie felt like she was in some horrible movie and for the first time in her life, she didn't really want to watch movies anymore. McGee had said goodbye at the other end with the parting words of "Don't be a stranger. I have known you parents for almost 12 years and believe me they are good people and only want what's best for you." Sophie had nodded and hugged him goodbye. The flight back felt way too long and every movie going seemed to be about the importance of family and Sophie managed the first five minutes of Finding Dory until that became too much and she felt sick. She arrived back at Campus almost 15 hours since the takeoff from Mexico and she had never been more pleased to see her bed. Her room seemed so large after the tiny room she had had at the Hayes house and with all the stuff she had had since she was three all piled up in there. She ran the water for a shower whilst she stripped off the clothes she had been wearing for three days and revelled in the soothing feeling of running water. She had promised Ziva that she would call once she arrived back at Campus and she hoped the call would be short, she was so tired.

Ziva sat in Tony's apartment for the first time in three months. Sophie had called her and told her that she was going to bed soon so Ziva had kept the call brief allowing Tony to have a quick chat with her before hanging up.

"Well, what do we do now?" She wondered out loud as both of them collapsed onto the couch.


	28. Chapter 28

"I guess we wait." Tony said as he handed her a bottle of beer. "We can't force any kind of decision." Ziva slowly sipped her beer looking around the apartment she hadn't seen for ages. She realized that the last time she had been here she had been heartbroken over the loss of her daughter and now here she was once again heartbroken over the loss of her daughter albeit in a different way.

"What do you think she will do?" Ziva asked him wondering whether she even wanted an answer.

"I don't know. I suppose she has a few options. She could abandon her entire life at Unit J and come and live with us and never go back. She could do a half and half, you know see us for holidays and stay at Unit J the rest of the time but then I guess her missions would take priority and we wouldn't see her for months at a time." Ziva made a face of disgust at that.

"I don't want to share her with a spy agency. I don't want to spend every day wondering how she is doing and see her for a week at Christmas!" Ziva said angrily.

"And you think I do? She would hate us if we forced her to leave. Her last option is to pretend this mission never happened and that we never hear from her again." Tony said as he stared into the distance.

"I won't let her do that! She can't pretend that we never existed! She is our daughter, she is mine!" Ziva yelled this time.

"I know, but that is what she has to choose from and as awful as we must think it is, imagine what she must be feeling. Imagine having to give up your whole life for us!" Tony said as he remembered the tortured look that Sophie had on her face when Abby talked to her. Next to him Ziva was deathly silent and it was the sort of silent that she got right before she was about to murder someone.

"What?" He asked, treading carefully.

"I have made that choice more times than I can count. I gave up NCIS for my daughter then gave up my heritage, everything I was, for this country. Don't think I don't know what choice she has to make." Ziva said aiming her glare at him.

"I'm sorry, I just don't want her to feel pressure from us on who to choose." Tony said hoping that the hug he now offered wouldn't be met with the threat of mutilation.

"We were talking earlier. Sophie and I, I mean, we talked about why she was at Unit J in the first place. She wanted to know why we weren't married." Ziva murmured quietly.

"I ask myself the same question every day." Tony said back as he held her in the hug. "I know why you couldn't do it but I guess some things have changed."

"Do you blame me for losing her? I think about it everyday of the things I could have done differently, run away sooner, told you. God, I wish I had told you." Ziva said hoping that she could remain in control.

"I never blamed you but the thing is, it doesn't matter how many times I tell you that I don't blame you, you won't believe me and I don't know what to do anymore, Ziva. I love you and have done for a long time but I don't know how to make you believe me and if Sophie should choose to pretend this never happened then I think that I will lose you too and I don't think I can take more than that." Tony exclaimed as Ziva pulled away from him.

"I do believe you." Ziva started to say.

"Do you really though? I think that you blame yourself and in order to fuel some kind of hate fire that you have, you have forced yourself to believe that I blame you and I am tired of being the thing that you use to punish yourself with. Somewhere up in your head, you believe that because Sophie was taken away from you, even though you did everything you could to prevent it, you believe that you don't deserve happiness and I am tired of it. If she chooses to never come back, then I think you will run to somewhere where I can't reach you and I can't go through that again." Tony said as he jumped off the couch. "Not another time."

"If she chooses to stay at Unit J…" Ziva trailed off before taking a deep breath and committing herself "I won't run. I will face it. I won't leave you again." She said praying that he would understand. She needed him to understand.

"And I need you to realize that none of this is your fault." Tony said staring into her eyes. Ziva fell silent again. How could he ask her to do that when it was all her fault. She should have told him, she should have run away, she should have told her father where to shove his stupid ideas…

"It wasn't your fault, Ziva, I need you to say it." Tony said holding her hands.

"I can't." She whispered.

"Your father was a lying scumbag who deserves to rot in hell. He trained you to become an assassin, he ordered you to kill your own brother, he wouldn't let you mourn Tali or your mother, he took your daughter away from you and you trusted him because he was your father. He was still the man who you wanted to love and trust so you told him. He would have found out anyway and then he gave you no choice. Honestly what would you have done?" Tony asked her once again demanding an answer she didn't know how to give. "You could have fought them but you were pregnant and you would have killed Sophie in the process. Told NCIS? Gibbs barely trusted you back then, Shepherd would have sent you back to Israel and me? I was still sleeping with college girls and you knew that so in the same situation. I have changed over the years as have you. You also need to remember that you were twenty five at the time and everything in hindsight has twenty twenty vision so you have to stop blaming yourself." Tony finished his rant feeling a little out of breath. Ziva pulled her hands from him and stalked off to lock herself in the bathroom. She wanted to believe him so much but he hadn't been there the night that her father's men had taken Sophie away. He hadn't heard her scream of terror. She wanted to hug her now, remind her that she loved her. Promise her that nobody would ever take her away again.

The alarm was really loud or at least Sophie thought it was loud. She had slept for a solid twelve hours but now she was back she was facing a meeting with the educational team and probably a mission suspension pending academic success. She had been out of school for almost a year and was probably falling behind or rather behind her usual standard. She picked up her Unit J issued phone and checked the messages. There were some from friends who had heard she was back, some from her teachers, and one from Elaine. She groaned as she flipped through the message and looked at the pending meeting for today. Elaine would probably try to ban her from all missions and make her life a living hell if she had it her way. Sam had prevented her from having to do an educational assessment before the mission to DC but Elaine would never let that go a second time. She flipped through the message again and saw the chairwoman was going to be there. The chairmen was pretty important and in general was only called in for the really important stuff so Sophie assumed this was probably due to her recent family additions. She buried her head under the pillow again wishing she could delay the conversation. She didn't know what to choose and didn't know what she wanted. All she knew was that she didn't want to have to go to an ordinary school and never do the fun stuff ever again but she didn't want to never see her parents again either. She jumped when she heard a knock on the door.

"Not locked" She yelled back and she pulled her head out from under the pillow. The gangly frame of Benjamin poked through the door. He must have grown at least a foot since the last time she saw him. He was really tall now.

"Elaine told me what happened and figured you could use some support." Ben said and he wandered in.

"Has everyone heard?" Sophie asked and she pulled herself into a sitting position.

"No. Rumour mill started though so everyone thinks something different but nobody really knows what happened out there." Ben assured her and Sophie was kind of amazed that he wasn't so whiny anymore.

"My parents happened. They actually exist." Sophie said running her hand through her hair.

"What do you mean? I thought that you were beamed down here by the Starship Enterprise." Ben said feigning wonder. Sophie started to tell him off then giggled.

"They're real but I'm pretty sure they were beamed down here by the Starship Enterprise. They're nice though. I just wish everyone would stop making me choose." Sophie said as she looked up at the ceiling.

"Maybe you don't have to. Although I don't think anyone would think badly of you either way. If it was me and I found out my parents were alive I would drop everything and go back to my life from before. I wish every day that they were alive even though here is cool, but they're my Mum and Dad you know." Benjamin said quietly as he stared off into space.

"But you knew them before." Sophie said quietly. "You have all these memories with them and I don't. It's no different then being adopted and I like my life here. I love missions and the training and when you leave you can do anything because you have qualifications in everything. This is the life I wanted to be in. If I wanted to be adopted then I wouldn't have done training." She finished as Benjamin studied her.

"I know. One minute I was playing football with my mates at lunch and then the next the police officer shows up at school saying my parents are dead in a car accident and I am on my way to a group home. If I could go back to my life before I would but I can't and now that I know this place, I wouldn't want to go back to the group home either. But, if you can let me give some advice…" Sophie snorted at Ben. Ben never gave advice. "No, seriously, even if you don't give this place up, don't give them up. Sometimes you need normality and someone who is always on your side. You also need them to keep your ego in check." Ben finished gravely and Sophie lost it laughing.

"What ego?" She said between snorts.

"You know, the one that screams "I got promoted on my first mission so you can suck it losers!"" Ben said with a hint of his old whiny self showing through.

"I got promoted on my first mission so you can suck it!" Sophie said between laughs and they both started laughing.

The education team looked like a group of mismatched librarians who got placed on jury duty for the day. They sat round a table holding a file that comprised of Sophie's education to date.

"Well, despite recent setbacks, you are still working at a level beyond your age group but not at the standard you should be at." The head of the panel said as she studied the piece of paper in front of her. Sophie inwardly smiled at how advanced she was. "I propose a three month mission suspension for all academic work to reach peak standard before being reconsidered for missions." Sophie tried not to smile at the reduced time.

"Are you sure that three months is enough?" Elaine piped up and Sophie resisted the urge to punch her. "Isn't six months more acceptable?" Elaine continued and Sophie tried not to gasp. Six months was a lifetime of no missions. She would get so behind in her mission experience if she was six months behind.

"She has had two long missions after Level One training and needs some time out." Elaine said as she examined the file.

"Three months and then an academic assessment to see if she needs another three." The head of the panel concluded and Sophie let out a sigh of relief. It was better than six months flat out. Elaine opened her mouth to protest but the panel was already getting up to leave and Sophie decided now was a good time to bolt out the door.

"Not yet." Elaine grabbed her arm as she made to leave. "The educational panel is done but we still have to talk to the Chairwoman about your parental situation." Elaine pushed her back into the chair as the door opened up for a woman with greying hair tied up in a bun to enter. She wore a pantsuit and moved with some kind of elegance that Sophie assumed you had to have had finishing school lessons to achieve. She sat down and studied the small girl.

"So Sophie, I have heard a lot about you in previous years. You were one of the youngest recruits to pass Level One training as well as the youngest recruit ever to receive a promotion of that level on your first mission and now we are here because we have discovered that your biological relatives are alive and well and know about your existence." The chairwoman said as she peered at Sophie through her glasses.

"Yes Ma'am." Sophie said.

"How did they come to know of her?" The chairwoman turned to Sam who had just come in.

"She was staying with two NCIS agents due to a mission involving the case of a murdered lietentenant. During her stay with them, through coincidence they became suspicious of her past particularly her pre-Unit J past and biologically tested her as their own missing daughter." Sam explained.

"I assume that we have confirmed their findings?" The chairwoman asked.

"We have." Sam affirmed.

"How come we accepted her into Unit J if she had two surviving capable parents?" The chairwoman asked as she looked into the file.

"We were told by David Eliyyahu as we knew him that both parents were dead. We did not have David's post Unit J name to confirm but David Eliyyahu had no reason to lie to us previously. She also did not show up on any missing child data bases of us or in the States. We had no reason to believe that this was a kidnapping case." Elaine said quietly.

"Are we under any legal obligation to return Sophie to her parents?" The chairwoman asked as she looked into the file. Sophie shuffled uncomfortably.

"No. We don't officially exist and officially Sophie pre Unit J is dead. Legally, we are under no obligation to return her." Someone in the back chimed in. Sophie looked at the floor.

"So this decision is on Sophie?" The chairwoman confirmed. There was a round of nods before the chairwoman turned her gaze to Sophie.

"So my dear, the choice is yours."


	29. Chapter 29

SplitAcrosstheContinents Part 29

#SplitAcrosstheContinents

"It's been three weeks, Tony, three weeks and nothing." Ziva snapped as she put down two plates on the table. Over the past three week, they had waited anxiously for any news from Unit J but so far there had been complete radio silence. There had been two cases that had come and gone since they had last spoken to them.

"I know. I am starting to wonder whether this is Unit J preventing her from contacting us or whether she has made her decision." Tony said as he put down the cutlery. "I miss her so much. All the time. Do you think it's her or Unit J that aren't contacting us?"

"I don't know. She seemed so confused when she left and maybe going back has sealed the decision for her. I hate this. I hate that she doesn't know the real us. We were all pretending on that mission." She started to divide up the food and had to remind herself that there were only two of them present and not three.

"If it was me, I wouldn't want to uproot my entire life on the off chance that two essentially strangers would love me and understand me. I just wouldn't and I know that you wouldn't either so why should Sophie?" Tony commented.

"You actually support her staying there?" Ziva glared at him. "You don't want her coming home?"

"That's not what I am saying. I am saying that I can understand why she wouldn't want to. I don't like it but I can understand it." Tony said as he tucked into his steak.

"I may have had a different upbringing to all of you but if I had to give up NCIS and my life here for my mother and sister to be alive then maybe I would give it up." Ziva snapped.

"Yes, and you knew your mother and sister. You had years with them. Sophie had limited visits and one mission next to years at Unit J. And would you really give everything up?" Tony asked suddenly realizing what she meant by everything. Ziva paused for a moment as if pondering the decision.

"If I could keep you then yes. Everything, in a heartbeat. But my mother and sister are dead. I buried them. Sophie is not." Ziva said quietly.

"But this isn't you choosing between here and your family, this is Sophie choosing between two different lives." Tony said quietly.

The maths assignment was hard. Sophie could have sworn she had been working on the same question for two hours and still had no clue how to solve it. Three weeks into her mission suspension had been hard. She had mountains of work to catch up on and she was spending nearly all of her time doing homework or assignments or tests. Some of her friends had suggested a trip to the cinema as a way to cheer her up but the mountains of homework due the next day had forced her to miss it. After they had all left she hadn't been able to stop the tears of frustration escaping. Elaine had practically chained her to a desk and Sophie was feeling herself go insane. She pushed the maths aside and looked in her planner to see what else she had to do. A history essay due in three days, an english essay due in two, the maths assignment due the next day, a chemistry worksheet due by the end of the week and her Hebrew essay due by… Sophie studied the planner, yesterday. She hadn't even started it. She checked her email and saw an angry email from her Hebrew teacher and Sophie nearly started crying again. She pulled out her notebook so she could start it and checked the subject title. It was history related and Sophie checked the history essay subject. She could have cried in relief as she saw they were on the same thing. She could write the same essay but in two different languages. She was half way through the first paragraph when she realized that her grandfather's story would be perfect to use in this essay as he had fought in the liberation of Israel all those years ago. Maybe Ziva could tell her a bit about it. She was scrolling through the contacts on her phone and pressing call on Ziva's contact before she realized what a stupid idea it was. She could hardly keep the conversation on her grandfather and not give an answer to her decision. She ended the call just as she heard Ziva pick up, her heart thundering in her ears. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself as the phone started buzzing again. She turned her phone off.

"Hey Tony!" Ziva called through the apartment. She had been writing up a case report on her laptop when her phone had started ringing. She had half a mind do decline the call as she really needed to finish this report but then she caught sight of the area number. UK. She immediately picked up and her one breath before the call was ended on the other end. Ziva pressed the return call button wondering whether the cut off had been accidental when her call was rejected on the other end.

"Yeah?" Tony yelled back from… Ziva listened again… the kitchen.

"I think Sophie has just tried to call me."

"She has? What did she say?" Tony asked excitedly.

"Nothing. She hung up."

"Did you call back?"

"Of course I did. She declined it."

"Are you sure it is her? I mean it wasn't a prank call?"

"I gave her my number before she left and this call is from the UK area code and Unit J wouldn't just breath into the phone and hang up. It's her."

"Okay. Can you text the number?" Tony said as he grabbed her phone and started to tap out a text.

"Give me that." Ziva grabbed her phone back and finished the text before sending it. The text came up with the little delivered sign but that didn't switch to read.

Sophie continued to work on her Hebrew/History essay in her notebook ignoring her MacBook blaring with the unread messages. She couldn't switch it off because it was connected to the internet which she needed for the essay. It was a stupid idea to call Ziva. Now she wouldn't leave her alone. On the other hand, maybe Ziva would help her on the essay or not give her any other homework to do. As she stared at her to do list she found herself really missing the relatively easy life she had lived with them. She was jerked from her thoughts by a loud rapping on the door. Sophie dragged herself out of her desk to go answer it when she saw Elaine outside. She had half a mind to slam the door in her face and whatever other thing that Elaine wanted her to do.

"Hi Sophie. How is everything?" Elaine asked her plastering a smile on her face.

"Ummm. Okay." Sophie replied.

"I've had an email from Mr Torad and he says that you need to give him your Hebrew essay." Elaine said and she pushed her way into Sophie's room. Sophie discreetly shut her MacBook.

"I haven't finished it." She said quietly.

"I can see that. Elaine said as she stared at Sophie's half done essay. "How are you really doing Sophie?" She asked again. Sophie sank down onto her bed as Elaine continued to stare at her.

"I don't know." Sophie mumbled.

"You have been snappy with everyone recently, you have rejected going out with your friends, you seem to never even leave your room anymore." Elaine started and Sophie stared at her incredulous. Could she not see the mountains of work she had to do? Her teachers seemed to be trying to make her catch up all of her subjects in one week.

"I've been busy. You have put me on mission suspension and made sure that I can't leave by making my teachers give me mountains of homework!" Sophie yelled getting angry. "I'm not super woman! I can't do all this work in one week and you expect me to go out as well! How can you expect me to be perfect after everything that has happened. It's not fair!" Sophie yelled as she glared at Elaine.

"I also wanted to talk to you about that. Have you spoken to Tony and Ziva?" She asked.

"No. I haven't had the time. I've been doing all this homework." Sophie muttered.

"Do you want some time to talk to them? You haven't been your old self since the mission." Elaine asked studying Sophie. Sophie sat back considering it. She missed talking to them. She didn't want to watch movies because then she would think about Tony. She missed Ziva's cooking. But then if she moved over there then she wouldn't see her friends again. Or go on missions again. Or talk to Ben everyday.

"I don't know." She whispered.

"Just so you know, talking does not mean packing everything up and leaving here." Elaine said quietly. "It's just a conversation. Take a break from this for now and call them or text them, doesn't matter." Sophie nodded and reached over to her phone to switch it on.

"Unit J supports whatever you decide okay?" Elaine said patting her shoulder.

"I just wish there was some middle ground. Every time I try to think about it, I'm always caught between the two and it doesn't matter how many different ways I think about it. It's always the same thing. Either my life here or my parents and I hate choosing." Sophie confessed feeling a weight lift.

"Sophie, the choice was never really one or the other. The choice was about whether you want them in your lives or not. That can be in any capacity that you want. The meeting a few weeks ago was to discuss your near future at Unit J and whether we would be forced to let you go out and return you to your parents. Ultimately there could be some middle ground if Tony and Ziva are up to discussing it." Elaine finished and Sophie nearly started crying. "Just call them." She added as Sophie unlocked her phone. She impulsively checked her unread messages and saw the fifteen unread messages from Ziva. She clicked on the call button and listened to the dial tone as the call ran through.

"Hello?"

Ziva's phone buzzed in her pocket once more and she rushed to answer it. She could hardly breathe as she heard the faint british accent that she had missed so much over the past few weeks greet her.

"Sophie?" She asked.

"Yeah, it's me." Sophie responded and it took all of Ziva's strength not to start crying.

"How are you?" Ziva asked feeling the relief flood through her as she sank down into the couch.

"Ummm. Okay, I guess. It's been a rough few weeks. I really miss you guys, especially Tony's movie references." Sophie said as she sank down into her bed, falling back against the pillows. "They put me through a massive educational assessment and I have been put on a mission suspension for three months until my work is back up to standard which means I have been chained to a desk for weeks doing essays and assignments and everything else under the sun." Ziva smiled privately at this. No danger for Sophie then!

"Oh no. How is the work going? I don't exactly remember you going to school much while you were here!" Ziva laughed as she dabbed a lone tear from her eye.

"No. I don't think JPMS could even have been considered an educational institution but more like a place where they send middle aged people to die at the hands of middle schoolers. It's all essays for me at the moment. They're okay but they take so long and my teachers are sticklers for due dates so I have had no time to do anything except work." Sophie continued over the phone as Tony came in the room. Ziva covertly flipped her onto speakerphone so Tony could hear her too. Tony sat down next to her and he too looked like he was going to cry.

"I haven't watched a movie in three weeks." Sophie added and now she sounded like she was on the verge of tears. "That's how bad it's got." Tony now looked a little shocked at this and Ziva had to stifle a laugh.

"How can you not have watched a movie in three weeks?" Tony asked scandalous.

"Because my teachers are asses." Sophie responded. "They prey off of human suffering." She added.

"That's not true. You haven't been in school for a year so no wonder they are trying to make you catch up." Ziva said comfortingly.

"Yes, by exchanging my will to live for a piece of paper with a bunch of letters on it."

"It will get better, I'm sure." Ziva said soothingly. If Sophie had been in the room she would have hugged her.

"I know. Just doesn't feel it now. How have you guys been?" Sophie asked sounding a little better. Tony and Ziva looked at each other wondering how best to answer this question.

"We went back to work this week. Had a few cases come in. Abby, do you remember Abby?" Tony asked.

"Crazy, gothic lady who grabbed me when she first met me?" Sophie confirmed.

"Abby may seem crazy but she just get really excited over family and over any new additions. Anyway, she has been asking after you everyday. She managed to wrangle off of Ziva that your birthday was the day you left and she bought you a birthday present but can't figure out a way to send it to you. Anyway, we have that here waiting for you. If you can give us an address then we can forward it to you or we can keep it here for you to have next time you come visit or something." Tony finished as he realized what he was saying.

"It's okay. I don't think you can send stuff to us here. It's really difficult to. Does everyone at NCIS know now?" Sophie asked quietly.

"Only the team. We obviously couldn't tell them the full story but they know you exist and that we couldn't tell them the full story. They all want to meet you of course but we weren't sure what you are going to decide so we have put off giving them any real details." Tony said feeling the conversation grow more difficult by the second.

"I can't decide. I don't know what to do. Elaine said something about a middle ground but I don't know what she means by that. I just wanted to talk." Sophie half whispered into the phone.

"Maybe there is. Anyway, we can talk about something else for a bit. Have you seen the new movie SING!? The one about the singing animals?" Tony asked her changing the subject quickly. Sophie smiled and said that she planned to go next week once her workload cleared up a little bit. Ziva rested her head on the couch cushion behind her listening to Tony and Sophie discuss some upcoming movie. Finally, she and Tony were talking to Sophie. She could even convince herself that Sophie was in the room with them.

Sophie lay back under the covers still on the phone. It was getting late at night and even though the essay was due, it could wait another day. She listened to Tony and Ziva's banter and occasionally chipped in to the conversation until eventually she felt her eyelids starting to close. Eventually she fell asleep still listening to Tony and Ziva talking in her ear.

"Sophie? Soph? Are you still there?" Tony asked as he realized that Sophie hadn't spoken for the past ten minutes. He took a quick look at his phone and realized that it was almost midnight back in the UK.

"Goodnight Sophie." He said into the phone before hanging up.


	30. Chapter 30

Sophie paced anxiously outside the conference room of Unit J. She had battled it back and forth in her head and had finally come to a decision. Tony and Ziva had flown in the day before having heard that she had made a decision and their excited faces had only made Sophie feel more nauseous. Did they think she was leaving Unit J forever? Elaine had sat them down earlier in the day and said that this was a decision for now and maybe things would change as she got older but as for now Sophie was going to be doing half and half. When Elaine had proposed this, Sophie had nearly thrown up in shock. A chance to have both seemed far too good to be true and Sophie was used to their being a catch.

"You mean we would only see her for holidays? Christmas and spring break?" Tony clarified with Elaine.

"And six weeks during the summer." Elaine nodded. "Depending on whether she is on a mission or not."

"We thought that we would see a little more of her than that. A total of ten weeks throughout the whole year?" Ziva looked aghast at that.

"That is the framework we have devised. Of course this is up for negotiation as Sophie sees fit but you have to remember she is receiving most of her education here. She is a very intelligent child and grows bored easily. That combination is what leads kids to trouble, so yes, it is in her best interests to remain here however that is not how everyone sees it." Elaine explained looking tired. It was rare that she ever had to deal with parents and she found these ones especially weary.

"And Sophie agreed to this?" Tony asked looking outside to where Sophie was pacing up and down.

"It was mostly her idea."

"Okay. I just never thought that this would be the way that it would go. I was in boarding school myself and saw my father about twice a year and I never thought that I would be bringing up my daughter the same way." Tony said trying to disguise his frustration.

"What you are asking her is impossible for her to do. She isn't going to magically forget everything and fit in normally like you want her to. She is picking the middle ground when she could just as easily have cut away all ties at all so this is a take it or leave it deal. This is what Sophie wants so what's it going to be?" Elaine snapped before taking a deep breath and putting a smile onto her face.

"We'll take it." Ziva said quietly.

"What? Shouldn't we be pushing for her to come home? For longer than a week?" Tony said to Ziva.

"Yes but not right now. Look at her. She's a mess." Ziva said looking out to where she was still pacing running her hands through her hair.

"Okay. But this isn't the last time we discuss this. I won't be my father." Tony said to her as Elaine closed the file.

"Sophie is still on a mission suspension with a month to go so she will probably be finished around the beginning of May. She is catching up with her work so the next time that you can expect for her to come to the states is from the middle of July to August baring any mission that she may be on by then. I will email you with the details around then. You can see her now." Elaine said as she opened the door to let Sophie in.

Elaine had explained all of this to her before and Sophie had agreed to it and had decided that ten weeks out of her year was a pretty good deal. She was still living her Unit J life but at least she didn't have to lost contact with her parents all together. She had heard Tony's slightly angry shouting and felt like going in and shouting at him. How would he like to give up his entire life for someone he met a few weeks ago? After a while they had seemed to have cooled off a little bit with Elaine holding her ground. She was thankful that Elaine, despite being a huge pain in the rear, was sticking up for her this time around. She watched as Elaine came over to open the door and allow her to come in. Ziva came over and enveloped her in a hug that seemed to last forever with Tony hugging them both. She could hear Ziva saying something in Hebrew to her but as it was so quiet she couldn't quite make out what she was saying but it seemed nice. It took everything she had to keep from crying. She wasn't about to ruin everything by blubbering about how much she missed them or let Ben know that she was capable of tears.

"Well I would show you around but as everything is classified, I don't think I can." Sophie said once Ziva let her go.

"Where exactly are we?" Tony asked as he looked out the window onto the sunny grounds.

"Also classified." Sophie said weakly. "I know where we are but I'm not supposed to let people who aren't agents know where it is. Can I show them my room?" Sophie asked Elaine who was gathering her folders together.

"You can and you can also introduce them to Ben but that's it. Nothing else." Elaine said. Sophie grinned and let them down a hall and out of the main administration building. Campus was massive but the main manor was home to all the agents which Sophie let them into.

"I feel like I am on Downton Abbey." Tony said as he looked up at the looming ceiling with a rather dusty chandelier hanging from it. They went up a staircase and along a hall then through a set of fire doors before reaching another hall which had doors down it. Sophie let them through the closest one and they saw what could only resemble a mess. Sophie hadn't bothered to make her bed so her duvet was crumpled with her pyjamas on the floor. Her desk closely resembled that of an upturned wastepaper basket with her textbooks in a heap on the floor.

"I didn't think anyone would see it." Sophie said sheepishly and they surveyed the mess. Sophie hurriedly tried to conceal the worst of it by throwing her duvet onto the bed and putting her pyjamas in the hamper. Ziva suppressed a smile as she moved a pile of textbooks from a chair onto a bookshelf. Tony looked out of the window out onto the grounds where he could see mass tennis matches being played and some people stretching for what looked like running around a track.

"Are you happy here?" Tony suddenly asked as he stared out of the window.

"Thats the thing though. Happy here as opposed to what? This is my life. I don't remember much of before and all my friends are here. I know that you guys must think I am being stupid for picking here over moving to the states but you just don't get it." Sophie said as she angrily folded her clothes. "I might be related to you guys but I grew up with my friends here. I have been friends with some of these people as far back as I can remember. I heard how angry you were that you only get to spend ten weeks of the year with me but for me that already seems like a lot. Maybe one day I will feel differently but right now, this is my life and I am not ready to give it up." Sophie burst out and she shoved her clothes into the dresser.

"I understand." Ziva said to her.

"Really? Do you really understand?" Sophie said sounding unconvinced.

"I left Israel after there was nothing left for me there. But if you had asked me four years earlier to give up everything then no, I wouldn't have done it. So for even agreeing to this then I am proud of you." Ziva said to her trying to communicate how much she understood.

"And you?" Sophie asked Tony who was watching them. He found himself trying to separate ten year old Tony from eleven year old Sophie. His Dad had left him in boarding schools since his mother died and all he could think was how much he had wanted to come home. He had done everything to try to remain at home. Yet here was a girl who seemed like she didn't want to come home. He caught sight of a photo pinned to a wall which he guessed was five year old Sophie and what looked like a seven year old girl next to her. The realization hit him quickly then, she already was home.

"I understand." Tony said as he tore his eyes away from the photograph.

"Then you know why I can't come and live with you. Not yet anyway. But I can see you in the summer." Then maybe they could have a go at being a proper family.

 **A/N Thank you all for sticking with this story right through to the end! Just to be clear this is not the end of Sophie's story. I know a lot of people will disagree with this ending but remember that Sophie is an eleven year old girl who is not fully mature yet. She is not losing all contact with them but choosing to spend a certain amount of time with them. This is the end of this story but there will be more!**

 **Thank you so much for all the positive reviews! They really make my day when I read them and thank you to those who remind me to update!**

 **I know that the last few chapters were updated sporadically and I'm sorry about that. Please remember though that I write this when I have time and my life has changed drastically over the past year so I don't always have time to write.**

 **Happy New Year Everyone and I wish you all well in 2018!**


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